West African Heads of State at the just ended ECOWAS summit in Accra, Ghana unani­mously agreed on the urgent need to have one identity card for citizens and residents in the sub-region.

The project, seen widely as the flagship project by President John Dramani Mahama who is currently the Chairman of the ECOWAS, has been lauded by many but some are also wondering if the project would not suffer a still birth.

"This project has been in the pipeline for a while now but ever since we attended a seminar on it a year ago, the government has been silent on it”, revealed Stephen Tetteh, an engineer who said he was part of the said seminar.

According to him the seminar was attended by politicians such as Jacob Osei Yeboah, Hassan Ayariga and Abu Sakara among others and so he was "convinced the project was going to take off immediately after the government had promised to set up a working committee”.

“It is good we develop an identity card for the sub-region but President Mahama must ensure that there is a local identification system which encapsulates all the relevant data,” Mr. Tetteh said.

When The New Crusading Guide contacted Mr Jacob Osei Yeboah who contested as an Independ­ent Presidential Candidate in the 2012 elections on his views on the proposed ID cards, he did not mince words on his approval. “This is a project we all must help to succeed because its importance is invaluable”.

Touching on the said seminar on National Iden­tification which took place last year, Mr Osei Yeboah disclosed that he facilitated the coming into town of the Germans for the State to learn the advantages for the HSH software.

The HSH Software (a.k.a AFRIDAB) has been developed to meet Africa adaptation of e-govern­ance systems by Ghana, S. Africa & Germany ICT experts.

The system is also used to develop a credible and maintainable electronic National Data Register of citizens and foreigners as well as busi­nesses.

Apart from managing the identity and issue of high security and maintainable ID Card, the system is also used to analyse Maintainable Ghana Sta­tistical Data with demographics for National De­velopment planning.

The HSH software is again used to integrate Immigration, passport, DVLA, NHIS, NIA, MoFEP, Electoral Commission among others.

Mr. Yeboah expressed optimism in the project and also admonished the President to see to the effective running of the National Identification Authority which has been bedeviled with myriad of challenges.

“Let me place it on record that a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes and there will be no excuse if this legacy project should fail.”

It would be recalled that in October 2013, three Ministers, led by Minister of Local Government honoured the invitation by HSH Soft & Hardware Company to Germany to enable them familiarize with e-governance and identity management sys­tems pertaining to Germany.

Subsequently, a collaborative workshop by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Devel­opment (LGRD) and National Identification Au­thority (NIA) was held on 2nd - 3rd December, 2013. The workshop was chaired by Hon. Dr. Mustapha Ahmed and attended by other 2012 Presidential Flagbearers. The HSH team from Germany made a presentation among others, iden­tity stakeholders in Ghana.

The purpose was firstly to help develop a framework aim at harmonising and implementing a synchronised ID card. Secondly, to develop main­tainable National Data Register for effective e- governance and integration of other e-projects by the government such as e-Transform, Ghana Stat­ics Development, Electoral Commission Bio-met­ric registration and voting etc.

The outcome of the workshop necessitated a team of NIA top officials led by the Board Chair­man, Mr. Larry Adjetey, to also pay a visit to HSH in Germany early this year. The visit was to enable NIA to access the operation and impact of HSH Software in line with the laws and NIA Act 750.