Mussa Dankwah, Executive Director of Global InfoAnalytics, has raised serious concerns about the financial and operational missteps that have crippled the Ghana Card verification system.
According to him, a project initially designed to be self-sustaining has been compromised by poor policy decisions, inefficiencies, and a failure to enforce biometric verification protocols in financial institutions.
Dankwah, who worked on the Ghana Card project as an accountant, insisted that the system was built on a framework that would have ensured strict and reliable verification for financial transactions. However, those safeguards were never fully implemented.
“As an accountant working on the Ghana Card project, I was insistent on all transactions at banks and microfinance institutions to be verified in person and in a manner that would remove reliance on humans in the verification process.”
Mussa Dankwah
He highlighted the risks of human interference, stressing that “Two people can collude to defraud the system, and that is what has been happening.”
According to Dankwah, the financial model for the Ghana Card was designed to be self-sustaining, relying on verification fees to generate revenue and cover operational costs without requiring government support.
The process required users to undergo verification through biometric fingerprint authentication, generating a unique verification code that could be traced back to the National Identification Authority (NIA).
This system, he argued, was designed to prevent fraud and ensure accountability. “There was nowhere in the process did we include photocopying the Ghana Card for anything.”
Instead, the verification code was supposed to be recorded on transaction documents, allowing authorities to track who conducted the verification when it was done, and at which location.
This approach, he maintained, would have strengthened security and ensured financial transparency.
However, Dankwah lamented that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) undermined this model by changing the fee structure.
Instead of charging per verification transaction, which would have created a steady revenue stream, the BoG implemented a fixed monthly fee per bank branch.
This shift, he argued, made the model financially unviable from the onset.
Bank Failures and a Collapsing Model
Furthermore, Mussa Dankwah highlighted the banking sector cleanup, which led to the closure of institutions like UT Bank, Unibank, Heritage Bank, and several microfinance firms.
He emphasized that this development further disrupted the project’s financial model, noting that it collapsed as these banks and microfinance institutions were shut down.
The expectation was that Ghana’s banking sector would evolve towards digital and branchless banking, aligning with global trends.
However, the premature collapse of several financial institutions meant fewer entities were available to contribute to the verification fee structure, rendering the model unsustainable.
“They made the issue worse when they failed to crack the whip on the banks to fully comply with biometric verification. For years, banks have photocopied people’s cards, allowing the same cards to be used fraudulently, sometimes by insiders in the banks to complete fraudulent transactions.”
Mussa Dankwah
He questioned why the BoG has only now decided to issue new directives prohibiting banks from photocopying Ghana Cards, wondering why such a policy has not been enforced since 2018 when the system was introduced.
A Way Forward for Ghana Card Verification?
Despite the setbacks, Dankwah believes there is still an opportunity to salvage the Ghana Card project.
He urged policymakers to revisit the original financial model and explore ways to restore the verification fee structure to make the project self-sustaining.
“I hope those involved in the Ghana Card project can now find a better way to enhance revenue and reduce the project’s reliance on taxpayers because it was not designed to be like that, but actions of government officials made the project taxpayer-reliant.”
Mussa Dankwah
He also pointed out the role the Ministry of Communications played in undermining the project by allowing a separate entity to handle SIM card registration instead of integrating the process with the NIA’s database.
According to Dankwah, the primary responsibility for the Ghana Card project’s struggles lies with government officials who failed to implement policies that would have ensured its financial sustainability.
Their decisions, he argued, have forced the project to rely on taxpayer funding, contrary to its original design. “Blame the government for the woes of the NIA and Ghana Card project.”
While the recent directives from the BoG may be a step in the right direction, he insisted that much more needs to be done to restore confidence in the Ghana Card system and ensure its intended benefits are realized.
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