Digitalisation and intergration

Ghana: Card registration problems persist as citizens fear lack of access to services

By Jaysim Hanspal

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Posted on February 11, 2022 12:08

People walk past the Bank of Ghana in Accra
People walk past the Bank of Ghana in Accra, Ghana, November 28, 2018. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

The poor management of the Ghana Card system has citizens calling on the government to delay its plans to use it for SIM card registrations and all banking transactions this year. More and more public service institutions now require citizens to present the Ghana Card, but some who applied for this new form of identification years ago are yet to received it.

The Bank of Ghana has said the only form of identification it will accept from 1 July is the Ghana Card. This follows the bank’s 19 January statement that said the change is “to ensure that all financial transactions performed within the ecosystem are linked to one identity and information, and unique codes for the transactions shared with the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to facilitate the identification of initiators/beneficiaries for track and trace purposes”.

The Ghana Card is the country’s standard method of identification and now includes biometric information. From 31 March, the Ghana Revenue Authority will replace tax identification numbers to match the Ghana Card PIN and citizens will also be required to have registered their SIM cards to their Ghana Cards.

[The] majority of Ghanaians did not receive their cards after the first mass registration exercise in 2008.

According to the finance

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