The Ghana Card has now been declared as an e-passport for travelling globally. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal Canada, Ghana’s National Identity Card (the Ghana Card) will now be duly recognized globally as a valid e-passport/ID card.
The Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia in his recent lecture at Ashesi University, stated that he is working to make sure the Ghana card (the national identity card) will be recognized in all countries and at all airports in the world as an e-passport by the end of the year 2022.
According to ICAO, the Ghana card becomes internationally acceptable for travel, and border control authorities can confirm in less than 10 seconds that the Ghana card/e-passport was issued by the right authority, which has not been altered and is not a copied or cloned document.
In practical terms, this means that it will now be faster and more effective for border control authorities to verify the identity of holders of the Ghana card. All Ghanaians who travel by border can now use their Ghana card as their passport for inspection and verification.
In a post sighted by TheGhanaTech.com, the Ghana Card will be very soon used for so many international digital trading since the card’s information has been captured and stored in the centralized database system.
The holder of a Ghana card will be allowed to board a flight to Ghana from any airport, just as with the normal biometric passport, without the need for a visa. Also, Diasporan Ghanaians who hold the Ghana card will not require a visa to travel to Ghana.
Within ECOWAS the Ghana card can be used to travel to any country. Travelling outside ECOWAS however, will require that you use your normal biometric passport which will contain your visas. In the not too distant future, we expect that electronic visas will be issued under ICAO 2.0 protocols.
