There have however been varied reports in the media on what Dr. Bawumia said about the e-passport.
During the public lecture held on November 2, 2021 a student of Ashesi University asked the Vice President a question for clarity, and below is what the Vice President said about the e-passport.
Here is a transcript and video of what the Vice President said:
QUESTION: In your speech, you were talking of the Ghana Card that is going to serve as an e-passport. Does that mean that the passport will be completely scrapped off? And for like visas, how is that going to synchronize with the card? Is it going to be on the passport or a digital form on the Ghana Card? Thank you.
ANSWER BY DR. BAWUMIA: As I said before, we have become the 79th member of the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) PKD Community, and this will allow, by the end of the first quarter next year, airport to read the card and information on the card, all airports, pretty much anywhere in the world. It doesn't mean that you don't need your physical passport to travel. We will get to the stage where we can have agreements. Right now, what is happening is that, we are linking every passport with the national ID number.
The Ghana Card number and the passport number will be linked so that your travel history is preserved. We have not yet reached there; currently, in terms of visas, you have ICAO 1.0 in operation. When it comes to 2.0, you will get electronic visas and we are not there yet.
Since we are not there yet, you are going to travel on your normal passports, but you can always present your e-passport for verification. And if you are stuck anywhere in the world and you need to come to Ghana and you don't have your manual passport and you have your e-passport, you will be allowed to board the flight as long as it is coming to Ghana.
So, when ICAO 2.O comes into operation, the visas can actually be issued electronically the Ghana Card, when it comes into operation. But we are not there yet, and we are making that progress one step at a time.
