Lying Bawumia Exposed Again! Ghana Card Is Not An Internationally Validated Passport-ICAO Rubbishes Claims

Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has once more been caught in a monumental deception as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) debunks his claims that the organisation has validated Ghana’s National Identification Card (Ghanacard) as a replacement for the conventional passport.

On February 10, 2022, the Vice President whom Google Search Results rank as the “Biggest liar” in Ghana excitedly posted on his Facebook: “Following a key ceremony at the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in Montreal Canada, Ghana’s National Identification Card (the Ghana Card) will now be duly recognised globally as a valid e-passport/ ID card.”

In his dubious claim, Bawumia went on: “According to ICAO…the Ghanacard becomes internationally acceptable for travel, and borer control authorities can confirm in less than 10 seconds that the Ghanacard/e-passport was issued by the right authorities”

However, the ICAO has issued an official statement explicitly distancing itself from the Vice President’s bogus statement that party “footsoldier” had gone to town with.

In ICAO’s statement on its official Twitter handle, it stated: “ICAO is aware of recent and incorrect media reports claiming that ICAO has agreed that the Ghanaian ID card is equivalent to an ePasspprt. However, it is not ICAO’s role to certify the use of a State’s Identity Card for international travel in place of a passport.”

The ICAO which had been prompted by Vice President Bawumia’s blatant misinformation, went ahead to clarify that for a country’s form of identification to be accepted by another as a valid travel document, those two countries would have to have a bilateral agreement to that effect.

“A number of States worldwide accept specific national ID cards as identity documents during air travel based on bilateral agreement between issuing and receiving states,” ICAO clarified, and further explained that any decision to accept such alternative identity card would have to be made by the receiving state and not ICAO as Bawumia sort to pull the wool through the eyes of Ghanaians.

In his widely publicised propagandist announcement about the Ghanacard being a replacement for passport, Dr. Bawumia, conspicuously refused to state the countries that Ghana had reached bilateral agreements with to receive the Ghanacard as a replacement for the Ghana passport.

Bawumia claimed Ghanacard will be accepted in over 40,000 airports. This is essentially the number of airports globally. Yet, from the ICAO debunk, the Ghanacard is not a carte blanche as Dr. Bawumia would want Ghanaian citizens to believe and that the country will have to specifically negotiate its acceptance with individual countries.

Apparently, the only thing Dr. Bawumia achieved with his visit to the ICAO to successful import Ghana’s Signing Certificate Authority (CSCA) into the ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD)

This means that it is made it possible for State authorities worldwide to electronically verify the electronic documents issued by Ghana, for instance, the Ghanacard and that they can be confident about the authenticity of the document.

This has nothing to do with using the cards as a passport. Not even advanced Western countries have that privilege if they don’t belong to the same economic block as the EU, which accepts authorised identity cards of member states as a travel document.

The Akufo Addo and Dr. Bawumia have failed to explain how visas of entry into foreign countries would be validated on the Ghanacard, as they push the deception to absurd levels.