PPP - Answer to NIA’s problems

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Margins ID Group, the mother company of Identification Management Systems (IMS), Mr Moses Baiden says Public-Private Partnership (PPP) holds the key to making the National Identification Authority (NIA) function effectively.

According to him, with lessons learnt, if the NIA’s contract with Morpho had been a PPP, the private partner would have borne the risk of the system performance and output, not government.

“The current PPP does not involve any government finance, not even a dollar from government.

“If it does not work, it's the private sectors risk, and there is no recourse to government unless government does not perform its part of the contract,” he said.

He was speaking to The Finder on challenges facing the NIA and the role of IMS in the ongoing identification programme.

Mr Baiden explained that the registration of foreigners under the Foreigner Identification Management System (FIMS) was carried out through a PPP between the NIA and the subsidiary of the Margins ID Group, IMS.

The IMS is a special utility vehicle created for the PPP to register foreigners living in Ghana.

So far, more than 55,000 foreigners, out of the 750,000 self-reported foreigners in the 2010 Housing and Population Census, have been registered.

According to him, the successes achieved under the FIMS project are being extended by IMS to register 15 million more Ghanaians in an expanded registration exercise.

A planned pilot exercise was to enable IMS to confirm what they were proposing to do under the expanded registration exercise for the NIA.

Under the new project, smart cards are to be instantly issued to applicants free of charge.

Mr Baiden explained that the contract, if approved, would provide a ‘bankable’ identification system for applicants and the government.

He said the demand from the government was for Ghanaians to receive the cards at no cost to them. However, processes had to be functional enough for the charging of some fees to make the National Identification System (NIS) self-financing.

He said because their proposals still had to go for parliamentary approval, the plans for recovering costs and making NIA profitable could not yet be disclosed.

However, Margins ID Group and its subsidiaries were working through several options of cross-subsidization for the project.

Responding to the issue about the functionality of a smart card to rural dwellers, farmers and those whose transactions were basic, Mr Baiden explained that was also something being firmed up to ensure there were functional cards for everyone.

Mr Frank Oye, the Managing Director of IMS, on his part, explained that the PPP’s registration of foreigners was predicated upon the fact that the NIA would sensitise all foreigners to get registered while the user agencies of the NIA – such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and the National Security – were all to insist on the use of the FIMS card in all transactions by foreigners.

He said out of the 20 stakeholder organisations, it was only GIS that insisted on foreigners using the foreigner identification card in registration and other immigration services.

In spite of that, however, FIMS had been successful, with funds to the tune of about $1.2 million being credited to NIA as fees and royalties.

• IMS has not taken a single pesewa from government but has rather invested its own time and resources to deliver cards to all foreign residents in Ghana and is seeking to do so for all Ghanaians.

• IMS, after attaining the minimum guaranteed number, will renew the technical asset after every five years to ensure that it is abreast with technology in a fast-moving environment.

• IMS will utilise and update existing data, equipment and consumables, including the cards procured under the first exercise.

• IMS is a majority Ghanaian-owned company that has provided jobs and training for Ghanaian employees (majority fresh graduates) and transferred to them valuable skills and know-how.

• IMS is only responsible for data collection on behalf of NIA and does not or will not keep any of the data collected. NIA owns and protects the data, and in this respect, IMS transferred its ownership of its AFIS and data server’s to NIA for free at NIA’s request earlier than the transfer date for the asset.

• IMS has generated over $1.2 million revenue to NIA under the FIMS project and has registered over 50,000 foreigners.

• IMS has won international awards for its innovation in Denmark and Germany and is regarded as an innovative and successful PPP.

•IMS and its parent company, Margins Group, is a Ghanaian company globally respected in the area of identity and security and the undisputed leaders in this industry, having introduced the ID cards business to Ghana over 25 years ago.