My friend, with whom I am travelling with to Ghana was supposed to pick me up at 6am today. When he was not at my end by 6:30, I called to find out what was happening.
He sounded distressed. He couldn’t find his Ghanaian Passport and he does not have a visa to Ghana in his British Passport too.
He was anxiously searching for his passport and I kept asking, where did you put it, when was the last time you saw it and why didn’t you pack this last night?
And then I asked: do you have a Ghana Card? He said YES!
Then I said: you can use that to travel to Ghana—at least that is what Bawumia claims.
He asked: are you sure? And I replied—let’s put Bawumia’s words to test—if we get there and they don’t accept it at the check-in desk as a Ghanaian travel document, I will write about it.
We got to Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport and showed his Ghana Card as evidence that he is a Ghanaian who does not need a visa to travel to Ghana.
Bingo: he was checked-in, and we are on the flight now.
So, I can confident say that, our digitalisation man was not lying to us.
This means, you don’t really need a Ghanaian passport if you have a passport of another country where you reside. Just use your Ghana Card alongside your foreign passport.
When my Ghanaian passport expires, I wouldn’t probably renew it—I will stick to Ghana Card and my other passport.
—Chris-Vincent Agyapong
