Ignore Bawumia, Ghanacard not a passport – Griffiths

A former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Identification Authority (NIA) has cautioned Ghanaians who yearn to travel abroad with their Ghanacard to be wary of their actions.

According to the former NIA CEO, these crop of Ghanaians risk being denied entry into the country, they intend to travel using the Ghanacard.

He added that the card has not been activated as an Electronic passport (E-Passport) even though it has a chip for such purposes in line with International Civil Aviation (ICAO) regulations.

Mr Kwame Osei Griffiths served this warning while speaking in a one-on-one interview on the Ghana Yensom morning show hosted by Kwame Obeng Sarkodie on Accra 100.5 FM on Friday, June 17, 2022.

He was speaking on the topic: ‘Can Ghanacard Be Used as E-Passport.’

He said in the negative that the Ghanacard as it stands cannot be said to do the job of a passport.

He revealed that a lot of Ghanaians who have had their passports expired are being turned away in their attempt to use their Ghanacards as passports to enter Ghana from the United Kingdom.

According to him, many Ghanaians are having Ghanacards without the smart chips activated.

“You will be denied entry to your destination if you continue to heed to the claims by the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia that Ghanacard is an E-passport in your hands,” he warned.

Mr Giffiths also challenged the Vice President to come clean on some of these claims about the Ghanacard being an E-passport.

“When I challenged the claims of the Vice President that Ghanacard cannot be used as a passport, his supporters insulted me for doing so, but what are we seeing today, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey has clarified it by telling Parliament that Ghanacard cannot be used as a travel document.”

He accused the Vice President of making several false claims about the country’s digitalization drive.

The Vice President at a point said with the operationalization of the Ghanacard deaths can be verified which was also a lie, he stressed.

He was of the view that the Births and Deaths Registry under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has no capacity to register 20 percent of deaths recorded in the country.

“The department is under-resourced, so it will be the stupidity of the highest order when huge sums are spent on collecting data and none is spent on the registration of deaths,” he averred.

“People are bound to use these existing data of dead people to commit crimes”, he revealed.