Ghana Card is valid for business

The National Identification Authority (NIA) has directed all institutions to accept the Ghana Card as an official and legal form of identification by Ghanaians to access any service.

The authority said it had already made a report to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to caution banks that were not accepting the Ghana Card.

“When the regulator does not succeed, that is when we will take the next line of action,” the Corporate Affairs Manager of the NIA, Assistant

Controller of Immigration (ACI) Francis Palmdeti, told the Daily Graphic.

The NIA said the Ghana Card was valid and active from the very time it was issued to the citizen and must be accepted by all institutions.
ACI Palmdeti made the call at a workshop organised by the Media Network on Migration (MENOM), in collaboration with the Centre for

Migration Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra.

The workshop, dubbed: “Acquiring the ECOWAS Card in Ghana: Challenges and opportunities for the Ghanaian citizens”, was to educate the media, academia, students and the public on the ECOWAS Card.

He explained that the Ghana Card doubled as the ECOWAS Card, after Ghana and ECOWAS had agreed that the two be fused together, following the adoption of the ECOWAS biometric identity card in Abuja in 2014.

He said as proof of identity, citizenship and residence of the holder, the Ghana Card was to, among other things, aid mobility of the citizen.

ACI Palmdeti said the card was, therefore, made in compliance with ECOWAS specifications.
Currently, he said, other African countries were implementing the ECOWAS Card, which is aimed at promoting and enhancing mobility in the ECOWAS region.

He, however, said each country’s ECOWAS Card was unique to that country and citizens were to register for the cards in their respective countries.

The why

He said it had come to the notice of the authority that some institutions, particularly banks, were not accepting the Ghana Card as a form of identity validation.

He explained that the banks were not taking the Ghana Card because they had a software which was able to identify documents such as the voter ID, drivers’ licences, passports, among others but could not identify the Ghana Card, hence the excuse not to accept it.

“It is not an excuse, because they are flouting the National Identity Regulation of 2012, LI 2111 Regulation (7), which speaks to the mandatory use of the national ID, which includes banking transactions,” he noted.

Going forward, he said, the NIA would develop its own verification modules for the banks and the telecommunication concerns and bring other organisations on board with time.

“The authority is currently focused on completing the mass registration of Ghanaians. In due course, those verification modules will become operational,” ACI Palmdeti said.

Objective of workshop

The Project Director of the MENOM, Mrs Patience Gbeze, said an informal survey conducted by the network showed that most people did not know about the ECOWAS Card.

She said the training was, therefore, to highlight and educate the public on the ECOWAS Card.

She said the workshop was also to enhance the knowledge of media personnel on the ECOWAS Card.

The MENOM is a non-governmental organisation that seeks to champion the human rights of migrants and migration-related issues in the country.