My Ghana Card over 1000 interchanges statement was misinterpreted – Dr. Bawumia

He said even though infrastructure helps develop a country, IT solutions like the Ghana card can save the country huge sums of money that is lost through ghost names at public organisations.

Speaking at the 2021 Civil Service Awards Night in Accra, Dr. Bawumia used the opportunity to justify his earlier comment on his preference of the Ghana Card over one thousand interchanges.

He insisted that an improved identification system would help deal with ghost names on the government payroll.

“It seems my Ghana card statement was misinterpreted. I want people to think about it critically. For the first time in our history, we have a unique identity system which is biometric, and so we can identify individuals.”

“With this, the case of ghost names on our public sector system will become a thing of the past.”

Vice President, Dr. Bawumia at the Annual Conference of the Institute of Internal Auditors (Ghana) in Accra. Pulse Ghana

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says an amount of over GH¢400 million has been lost to ghost names on the Social Security and National Insurance Trust SSNIT pension scheme and the National Service Scheme.

According to the Vice President, about 27,000 ghost pensioners were identified on SSNIT with 14,000 ghost names on the NSS.

“14,000 ghost names were recently found at the National Service because there was no unique identity. Just a couple of days ago, SSNIT found 27,000 ghost names, and they were being paid GH¢327 million. Just these two institutions have cost us over GH¢400 million.”

Speaking at the launch of two new high-level information technology programmes at Accra Business School on Thursday, July 14, 2022, the Vice President said he would choose the Ghana card over 1000 interchanges as the former has a greater impact.