The National Identification Authority (NIA) maintains it should not be held responsible for famed galamsey queen Aisha Huang's possession of a Ghana card notwithstanding her deportation.
According to NIA's Executive Secretary, Prof. Kenneth Attafuah, when Aisha Huang [captured in NIA's system as En Huang] was expelled out of Ghana in 2018, the Ghana Immigration Service did not return the non-citizen card issued to her as required by law.
He said that this prevented the NIA from flagging her name in its database.
“Ghana Immigration Service did not give Aisha Huang’s card to us [when she was repatriated]. There is no human in the national identity register called Aisha Huang. Nobody has ever registered called Aisha Huang. It may be someone’s nickname or pet name, but it is not a name that exists in our register.”
"The cards that Immigration sends us are cards of people who have gone through the court process and have been determined to have violated the laws of the Republic of Ghana and are deserving of deportation or repatriation, depending on the situation." The Ghana Immigration Service takes possession of their cards, enables their departures, and subsequently returns the card to NIA custody as required by law."
He stated that in this situation, the NIA is aware of En Huang, but they did not obtain her ID card as required by law.
“Immigration has not given us En Huang’s card and I suspect that it was because on the occasion she had come to our attention, she had not gotten to the attention of the Immigration and judicial process. If it were so, I am confident that the Ghana Immigration Service would have done the needful,” Prof. Attafuah noted.
Because this process was not followed, the NIA Executive Director stated that when En Huang attempted to renew her identity, there was no concern because "she was being a legitimate foreigner dwelling in our nation."
Prof. Attafuah believes this is why she was discovered with an updated Ghana Card when she was detained again earlier in September.
Following her re-arrest for illegal mining operations in the nation despite her deportation, Aisha Huang was discovered to be in possession of a Ghana Card under the name Huang En.
The NIA previously stated that the particular registration was done in 2014 under the name Huang En and was renewed in 2016 and 2018 in Kumasi, explaining the viral Ghana card image suggesting that the suspected illegal miner was given the Ghana card.
It claimed that in August 2022, a Chinese national tried to register a new non-resident Ghana card under the name Ruixia Huang, but the system flagged it because the biometric details matched those of Huang En.
She is currently standing trial with four other Chinese nationals.