Ghana Card project saves nation US$1.5 billion – Margins ID Group

The implementa­tion of the Ghana Card Project has helped the gov­ernment to save more than US$1.5 billion for the past decade.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Margins ID Group, Moses K. Baiden Jnr, stated this during a stakeholder dialogue on the Ghana Card project in Accra on Tuesday.

According to him, the govern­ment saved the amount because the various government agencies such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, Social Security and Na­tional Insurance Trust, and Ghana Revenue Authority did not have to develop their own identity cards for their clients and customers.

He said all the government agencies were now using the Ghana Card to identify their customers.

The dialogue was organised by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation and the Margins ID Group, a technical partner to the National Identification Authority.

The programme was attended by senior officers from state organisa­tions such as Data Protection Com­mission, NCA, Ghana Investment Fund Electronic Communications, Ghana Post, National Information Technology Agency, and Postal and Courier Services Regulatory Commission.

Baiden Jnr said currently more than 18 million Ghanaians had been registered and 17,878, 144 cards had been printed.

He said currently about 98 percent of the adult population had been issued with their Ghana Cards.

Baiden said the country should rely on the Ghana Card Project to leapfrog from the fourth industrial revolution into the fifth industrial revolution.

He said the availability of data and artificial intelligence would lead to the fifth industrial revolution.

Among other benefits, Mr Baiden Jnr said Ghana card would help in tax collection, promote good governance.

He said the Ghana Card would help in the implementation of the Livelihood Empowerment Pro­gramme (LEAP) since it would help in determining the identities of the beneficiaries in real time and ad­dress the challenge where the grant were sent to wrong beneficiaries.

Mr Baiden Jnr said so far about 244 state agencies were using the Ghana card for verification in their service delivery.

He said the Margins ID Group was implementing the Ghana Card Project through Public-Private-Part­nership from design to printing of the cards.

Baiden Jnr said his outfit had spent $24 million on the project.

The CEO said Ghana had a robust national identification system and the Ghana Card was difficult to clone.

He said some African countries had come to understudy Ghana’s national identification system.

Baiden Jnr said the Ghana Card was developed to meet inter­national standards.

He said the vision of Margins ID Group was to be a global leader in identification, data and documen­tation systems, transactions and solutions.

The Deputy CEO of Margins ID Group, Kwesi Baiden, said his outfit had been a major player in the Ghana Card Project.