The CEO of Margins Group says there is the need to establish a reliable identity system to combat fraudulent activities and enhance service delivery in Ghana.

Moses Baiden stated that prior to the implementation of the Ghana Card, initiated during the administration of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, the primary objective was to establish a "source of truth" to verify individuals' identities legally.

Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, March 16, he stated that this process involved collecting relevant data from individuals to create a physical document that could be used for identification purposes during transactions, thus mitigating the prevalence of fake identities, which serve as the foundation for various crimes.

Mr Baiden explained that different countries are at varying stages of identity infrastructure development, citing the Northern Europe where well-kept records facilitated the adoption of a Federated Identity system, leveraging on existing databases to establish a unique identity.

“But when it comes to the situation here in Ghana - because our records are truncated, you cannot really say whether these siloed Federated Identities can be relied on.

“So recognising this problem, all governments [the five presidents that I have seen] have noticed that in order to be able to deliver services to citizens efficiently, you need to know who your citizens are and where they are living.

“But if I go to any of the siloed databases like the Passport Office and I give them the information that I’m Samson Lardy and they give me a passport saying I’m Samson Lardy - even if they take my biometrics, it connects to me but my legal identity is wrong.

“Then if these databases are not connected, I’m able to go to SSNIT and say I’m Moses Baiden with the same identity, same biometrics but this time I’m 24 because I want to increase my pension age. So you can imagine that over the years, we’ve created these siloed that have identities that are not reliable and have duplicates,” he said.

Read also: We’ve uncovered thousands of fake passports, driver’s licenses, other national IDs – Margins Group

He emphasised the necessity for a comprehensive identity verification process to create a reliable database that integrates both public and private sector entities' information.

Mr Baiden added “So that you can now harmonise these foundational databases with these siloed databases and remove the duplicates to have a clean society where people are who they claim they are.”

He stressed that achieving this clean database would enable government's effective planning and budgeting and provide precise information on demographics.

The Margins Group CEO stated that this would help the government to “Know exactly where all your farmers are, you know exactly where all your schoolchildren are, what ages they are. So the school feeding programme for instance will not be blotted.”