The move is to enable the GIS to map their locations and make the monitoring of their activities easier while in the country to ensure that undesirable elements do not infiltrate the country.
Director of Immigration, Dr Peter Wiredu, who announced this at the opening of the GIS Regional Commanders Conference in Accra said due to the ECOWAS protocol which allowed people from neighbouring countries to enter Ghana for 90 days without a visa, it had become very difficult for GIS to monitor them.
Read more: Ghana Immigration Service To Keep Biometric Documentation On Migrants
To that end, the commission has called on the organizations that have the capacity to provide equipment for biometric registration to avail themselves of the opportunity.
This is in the line with the EC’s arrangement to replace the existing voters register that was compiled in 2004.
Read more: GH: Electoral Commission Sets In Motion Plans To Go Biometric In 2012
To be scrapped as used in the previous paragraph means that Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) will not use the 2008 voters register. An advert by the EC currently running in the media states in part that the EC “intends to use biometric technology to replace the existing Voters Register that was compiled in 2004 (emphasis ours).
Read more: GH: Biometric Voters Register For 2012: No More Rigging Of Elections
The personnel unanimously and vehemently kicked against the system.
As part of efforts to get as many people to use the biometric e-zwich cards which can be used to perform various banking and retail functions, the government has ordered that henceforth all national service personnel should be enrolled onto the e-zwich system.
The program which is aimed at meeting a full national migration by December 2014 is informed by the International Telecoms Union’s deadline date of June 2015 for worldwide migration onto digital services, to improve both sound and picture quality and allow for some spectrum dividends such as the renewal and granting of licenses for more digital radio and television stations.
Read more: Ghana’s digital migration and E-governance makes progress