VIDEO: Bawumia explains ‘I will choose Ghana Card over 1,000 interchanges’ comment

Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has vehemently defended his contentious remark about preferring the Ghana Card over a thousand interchanges.

Dr. Bawumia stated at the Accra Business School that the national identity card is more useful than 1,000 interchanges.

“We built a national identity system and now have 16 million Ghanaians with unique IDs, which is a significant development.” And sometimes a lot of folks don’t realize how significant the Ghana card is.

“However, if you give me 1,000 interchanges and a Ghana Card, I’ll choose the Ghana Card because it’s more impactful,” he remarked at Accra Business School.

This sparked outrage among certain members of the public and the opposition NDC.

After more than two weeks, the Vice President has answered to his critics. He attempted to defend the remark when speaking to attendees at the Civil Service Awards event on Friday.

“You can image the uproar that produced, with people wondering, is this man insane?” he inquired.

Dr. Bawumia explained his remark, saying that “for the first time in our country’s history, we have a unique identifying system that is biometric, and therefore we can uniquely identify every individual, whether they are living or dead.”

He believes that this circumstance would eliminate phantom identities from state payrolls, potentially saving Ghana millions of cedis.

“As a result, phantom names on our public sector payroll will be a thing of the past… We discovered 14,000 ghost workers in the National Service Scheme, saving 114 million Ghana cedis each year simply from one institution because we seek for unique identities. SSNIT has claimed uncovering 27,000 phantom pensioners who were receiving 327 million cedis per year.”

According to the Vice President, the Ghana card number has also become the TIN number for Ghanaians, which would assist unify databases and increase tax collection, resulting in more money for the government.

He believes that these savings, among many other benefits Ghana stands to gain, prompted his statement about choosing a Ghana Card over a thousand interchanges since it will not only save the government millions of cedis, but will also help cut back on corrupt activities.

watch the video below