Ghana, a Card carrying Nation

One fine evening in Mbrah a “suburb” of Breman Asikuma, with the sun setting in the West from the direction of the boys school, I took my radio and sat in front of my mother in laws house.

On radio, as usual, there was a heated argument, between representatives of the two main political parties. It was about a supplementary budget that had been passed in parliament recently. A huge chunk of the supplementary budget, that is GH₵80 million ($52 million) would be required by and given to, the Electoral Commission, to undertake the registration and provision of Biometric Voter ID Cards to the citizens of the Republic of Ghana. I was both happy and sad by the news.

Happy because the Electoral Commission had won. Several years ago, the Electoral Commission had argued that it was in the best position to undertake the National ID Card project. Implicit in their argument was the proposal that the same biometric card would double as a National ID Card and a Voters Card. The Electoral Commission lost the argument and a separate National ID Authority was established to undertake the exercise. Needless to say, those of us in Breman Asikuma have not received our cards yet.

I was sad because, for reasons best known to our Politicians and technocrats, $52 million was going to be spent effectively DUPLICATING EFFORT. A similar amount if not more had been spent previously on setting up the National ID project.

“Good Evening ooooooh”. I looked up and saw Koo Krampah on his way back from his cocoa farm. I responded warmly and watched him walk away, tired and looking bedraggled. Millions of farmers like Krampah, all over Ghana, labored day in and day out, to nurture their farms until they harvested and dried their produce. It then dawned on me that the fruits of our hardworking farmers was what fueled and covered up the excesses and unwise duplication of effort in creating multiple cards for citizens of Ghana.

So by 2012, Ebo would have to carry 5 cards on his person at any point in time/.

1.       Drivers License

2.       National Health Insurance Card

3.       Biometric National ID Card

4.       Biometric Voters ID Card

5.       Mobile Phone Card

The tragedy of it all is that the information on all the above mentioned cards could have been consolidated onto one card. This is because the current generation of Smartcards are effectively mini computers with the capacity and ability to store significantly more information than all the aforementioned cards combined. Each card also has the ability to perform multiple functions  at the same time. So performing all the roles of the above cards would be a piece of cake for each Smartcard. And this information was common knowledge 10 years ago.  In certain IT circles abroad, executives must be laughing at the unnecessary duplication of effort we practice here in Ghana.

The way forward

Well for a start, the most competent organization in that respect, the Electoral Commission, has been awarded the contract to undertake the Biometric Voters ID. Steps must be taken to ensure that the technology and cards used:

·         are scaleable

·         can perform their assigned roles for the next 10 years

·         have the requisite capacity for the aforementioned time period and more

Once these are in place, the government must take the bold decision to consolidate at least the:

1.       National Health Insurance Card

2.       Biometric National ID Card

3.       Biometric Voters ID Card

into one card.