The Internation Civil Aviation (ICAO) has given approval for the Ghana Card to be used as a valid e-passport globally. In effect, holders of the card can now present it as a validatory card at the 197 ICAO accredited countries and 44,000 airports worldwide and board flights to Ghana.
This development follows an official ceremony held on Wednesday, February 9, 2022 at the headquarters of ICAO in Montreal, Canada. The High Commissioner to Canada, Mr. Randford Sowah, received the ‘key’ to symbolically indicate the country’s entry into ICAO family.
It would be recalled in November 2021, when the Vice President, Dr. Bawumia, said that the Ghana has an electronic feature for passport and thus will soon be used by travellers to travel home.
“It is not widely known that the Ghana card is also an electronic passport (e-passport) that contains the biometric information which can be used to authenticate the identity of travellers.”
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
When the information was noised abroad, a lot of people posed questions at its feasibility as it sounded impossible in their minds. Receiving the news about the approval of the Ghana Card as e-passport shows the Vice President knew exactly what he meant when he made the propposition.
The ICAO stated below;
“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 Ghana’s passport. The ceremoney marks the final stage of implementing Ghana’s “e passport project”.
Let’s take a quick look at the before reaction and the ICAO’s statement below;
