According to Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Ghana Card will be recognized as an electronic passport in 197 countries by 2022.
The Vice President said this will make travelling for Ghanaians in the diaspora more convenient during a public lecture on the digital economy at Ashesi University on Tuesday, November 2, 2021.
“The Ghana card will be recognized as an e-passport and can be read and verified in all [International Civil Aviation Organization] ICAO compliant borders (in 197 countries and 44,000 airports in the world). When this happens, holders of the Ghana card will be allowed to board any flight to Ghana.”
“Furthermore, the good news for diasporan Ghanaians is that when the Ghana Immigration Service is linked to the NIA architecture, diasporan Ghanaians who hold the Ghana card should not have to obtain visas to travel to Ghana.”
Other benefits of the Ghana card, according to the Vice President, include the ability for Ghanaian missions and other embassies abroad to establish the identity of Ghanaians using the Ghana card.
According to Dr Bawumia, the government has been working with the International Civil Aviation Organization to activate the Ghana card’s e-passport function globally.
“We expect this to be operational by the end of the first quarter of next year. Ghana is one of the few countries in the world where the national ID card is also an e-passport,” he said.