Seven government agencies have so far been migrated onto the Ghana card, Chief Executive and Founder of Margins Group - the implementing company for the Ghana card project, Moses Baiden, has disclosed.

This means these agencies will accept only Ghana Card for transactions.

It is expected that 17 agencies will be migrated onto the Ghana Card and will comply with the policy of transacting government business with only persons that possess the Ghana Card, by the end of the year.

Mr. Baiden told Joy Business the telecom firms will also be migrated onto the card before the end of the year.

The move, he believes, will save the nation $1.5 billion of cost if all government agencies are migrated onto the Ghana card.

“Basically, the organisations themselves have to go through transition. Today, five organisations are transitioning. SSNIT is almost done, National Health Insurance Authority is almost done – they have all the data, the banks are on board – they have been on boarded. As we speak, the telecom firms are going to verify their numbers so that we know that there are no fraud issues. The Controller and Accountant General Department is on board, the Passport Office is on board”, he explained.

“We have all these institutions currently being on boarded but under the NIA laws as amended (LI 2111), there are 17 mandatory institutions which are all government institutions, which need to give you service. But they need to identify you; they can do that seamlessly”, he pointed out.

“Today we have a verification platform built with the NIA that even if you do not have your card, we can verify you within seconds”, he added.

To him, the NIA has the will, the tenacity and ability to succeed, adding, both parties – the NIA and his outfit have been successful.

“We have the sustainability because of the revenue model, we have the sustainability because of the people involved. Structures have been successful, so you could see we’ve crossed the tipping point, from 900,000 cards between 2007 and 2016”, he stressed

So far, 15.2 million Ghanaians have signed onto the Ghana card.  160,000 foreigners have also been registered.