Over 16.9 million Ghanaians have so far been registered for the Ghana Card as at 13 July 2022, the National Identification Authority (NIA) has said.
Executive secretary of the NIA Prof Kenneth Agyeman Attafuah is unhappy some persons have resorted to obtaining police statement to get their card reprinted although they have already been registered.
“We have as at 13 July , registered 16,936,934 Ghanaians [16 years and above] onto the national identity register, we have printed the cards of 16,743,832 Ghanaians,” Attafuah said on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Tuesday( 19 July).
“We have issued 16,674,131. As at 13 July, we had uncollected cards of 895,140. It is important to contrast this with the situation before February 2017 where only 4,554,520 Ghanaians have been registered between 2008 July and February 2017,” he told sit-in host Benjamin Offei-Addo.
Attafuah added, “Only 2, 719, 425 cards had been printed and 900,000 cards had been issued between 2008 and 2017 February.”
Listen to Prof Ken Attafuah in the attached audio below:
Ghana Card as e-passport
Meanwhile, the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL) has informed airlines that the Ghana Card will from 1 March 2022, be recognised as an international travelling identity document, otherwise called e-passport for all Ghanaian holders travelling to Ghana.
The move means that Ghanaians in the diaspora, who hitherto needed a Ghanaian passport and a visa to travel back home, will now be able to use their Ghana Card to travel back to Ghana without a visa.
The GACL’s notification asked all airports and international airlines operating to Ghana to allow holders of the Ghana Card to board flights to Ghana, following the card’s recognition by ICAO as an international Machine Readable Travel Document.
The latest step by the GACL paves the way for airports and airlines to start recognising the Ghana Card as an e-passport.
Read the statement below:
Fred Dzakpata
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