Ghana Card not E-Passport – Foreign Ministry Sets Records Straight

Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has officially clarified to Parliament that the Ghana Card is essentially an identification document with biometric features but not an Electronic Passport or a travelling document.

“Mr. Speaker, I wish to reiterate the fact that even though the Ghana Card bears the technical features of as an E-Passport and has the potential to be used as an E-Passport,  there is still a long way to go for it to be recognised as such

“…For a country to accept our national identification there must be some bilateral agreements and already we have started the request for some bilateral negotiations for some key countries to accept our national identification”, the Foreign affairs Minister told Parliament yesterday Tuesday June 14, in response to a question from MP for Salaga South Zuwera Mohammed Ibrahimah on whether the  Ghana Card represents and Electronic-Passport and what exactly is the meaning of an Electronic-Passport.

In response, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, noted: “An E-Passport is an international travel document which contains the bio-data of its holder on a micro chip. It has robust security features against identify and other forms of document fraud, thereby rendering it the travel document of choice of most countries.

“But in contrast, the Ghana Card as defined in Section 19  of the National Identification Authority Act 2006, Act 707, is  an identity card with a personal identification number issued by the Authority for the purposes of identification of a person the card is issued. Therefore the ID card is principally an identification document and an E-Passport is essentially a travel document”

Minister Ayorkor Botchwey, when asked about a supposed tweet from Ghana’s presidency that the Ghana Card is equivalent to an E-Passport  accepted in some 44,000 international airports, said she was not aware was such a tweet but can however confirm that there are ongoing negotiations for some key countries to accept the Ghana Card as a travel document.

She said at the moment, the holder of a Ghana Card would be allowed to board a flight to Ghana from any airport, just as with the normal biometric passport.if during check in, the person cannot find his passport.

“Mr. Speaker the Ghana Card is not a replacement to our current biometric passport. The Ghana card may serve as an optional travel document to be used in tandem with our biometric passport. It must be underscored that the passport together with our travelling certificate are the only approved traveling documents for Ghanaians accepted internationally.

“At the moment the Ghana card cannot be used as a travel document within or outside ECOWAS as that would require a bilateral agreement with countries for their authorities to accept the card as a travel  document.

“The Ministry is in active discussion with  ECOWAS member states and our bilateral partners to achieve this”, Minister Ayorkor Botchwey noted.

She gave further clarifications: “We belong to ECOWAS which is a block. Al the 15 countries within ECOWAS are mandated to issue national identity cards  which will double as ECOWAS Cards.

“Mr. Speaker, once all the countries do what Ghana has done which is to put in place a national identification scheme where citizens have their identity cards we would now be able to cross into each other’s countries with our ECOWAS cards which happens to be our national identification cards.

“It is the same thing that the EU  countries have; where holding a ID which states your citizenship will give you the opportunity to use it as a travel document to cross into other countries. So that is the potential that this has.”