Margins inagurates US$3.5m security printing facility
The Intelligent Card Production Systems (ICPS), a subsidiary of a Ghanaian-owned Margins Group, has inaugurated a US$3.5-million modern facility to meet the needs of all security cards and document printing and processing, for the local and the West African market and beyond.
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The facility was made possible through a US$10 million Danida mixed credit facility to upgrade the company which can now undertake the full range printing of security documents, personalised identity (ID) cards as well as fully configured data cards.
According to the promoters of ICPS, the facility is now clothed with the technical capability to provide a transformational change in the company’s area of operation - secure printing and manufacture of high security document and cards, identity solutions and secure applications.
It would ultimately enable the ICPS to become the only company in the country with capacity to produce specialised and high security cards such as Europay, MasterCard, Visa and other high security internationally certified documents.
Operational advancement
The Chairman of the Margins Group, Mr Moses Kwesi Baiden, noted that the mixed credit facility was a bold step to the operational advancement of the company.
“The mixed credit is part of the final US$10 million upgrade of ICPS factory to an international certified standard which is in the final stages of completion over the next few months,” he said.
Factory capacity
He said due to the support the factory has expanded its central site of National Identification Authority (NIA) which has been developed jointly with Dermalog of German, a company considered the leader in biometrics, together with IDFG of Denmark.
“And the identity management Systems has been a private partner to NIA, in a Public Private Partnership according to the requirements specified by NIA over the last two years” he said.
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The central site has the capacity to store 400 million fingerprints, 80 million faces and 80 million Irises, and is the most advanced biometric system in the country to date.
Government as partner
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Hannah Serwah Tetteh, encouraged private businesses not to hesitate to engage the government to form partnership to address the country’s challenges.
She said for the business community to consider the government as a partner would foster a better public-private sector relationship to undertake projects that would be in the interest of the nation but also grow their business.
Handing over
The outgoing Danish Ambassador to Ghana, Ms Margit Thompson, officially handed over the US$3.5 million state-of-the-art card and security printing equipment to ICPS.
Inspecting the facility, Ms Thompson, supported by the Ms Tetteh, Mr Rashid Pelpuo expressed her joy at the upgrade of the facility.
“This will enable the company to achieve its vision of producing world class products in Ghana and to contribute to the knowledge industry in the area of secured printing across the sub-region” she said.