Ghana Card is an "enrichment scheme" and scam; $250m spent so far - Bright Simons

Honorary Vice President of IMANI Bright Simons has described the Ghana card as “an enrichment scheme”

According to him “few elites” who are the beneficiaries of the enrichment scheme have hoodwinked the Ruling Party into believing its political fortunes depend on it.”

Bright Simmons made the comments in a tweet after it was disclosed to Parliament that the National Identification Authority was indebted to its contracting partner Identity Management Systems to the tune of $117million.

The situation, according to the Executive Director of the NIA Prof Ken Attafuah has led to the seizure of over 3 million blank cards meant for the printing of new Ghana cards for some subscribers.

Prof Ken Attafuah while addressing Parliament confirmed the payment of GH¢100million to the IMS which was later corroborated by the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta who was also before the house on questions about the operations of the NIA.

Bright Simons, technology innovator, development activist and President of the mPedigree Network, speaking at the Launch event of The Web Index 2013, at Reed Smith London Office, Broadgate Tower, London. UK. 22/11/2013. Taking the format of a country ranking, the annual Web Index (thewebindex.org) is the world’s first measure of the growth, freedom and utility of the World Wide Web in 81 countries.

In a series of tweets, Bright Simons described the Ghana card scheme as one of the world’s most expensive ID Card Schemes, sorry scams”

According to him despite initially assurances that the Public Private Partnership signed with IMS was supposed to cost the state $124million, government has so far sunk more than $250milliom of state money into the project.

“The NIA said the state’s total contribution will be $124m. That so-called PPP partner will fund the rest of the budget.”

“In 2020, a whopping GH¢800m was budgeted for Ghana Card rollout. In 2022, more than GH¢400m.”

“More $250m of state money has already been sunk. This is one of the world’s most expensive ID card schemes, sorry scams. Yet, govt is expected to pay $117m in arrears,” he wondered.