By the end of the year, Ghana will have modernised visa application and issuance processes thanks to the delivery of an innovative E-Visa system that will be placed at the airport and the Ghana Immigration Service Data Centers.
The last step of the 2020-launched e-visa project comprises installing the appropriate hardware that will read data from applicants from all over the world into a database and allow the Ghana Immigration Service to accept or reject visas at the point of origin.
The Foreign Affairs Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, stated that the new system will improve the security characteristics of Ghana's visa regime in an interview with TV3 during the introduction of the Site Acceptance Test (SAT).
The new system will contain all of your pertinent information, exactly as the visas you receive when applying for entry to the UK or the US. We're going to start there. We must be able to get reliable information on the visitors. To stop anyone from impersonating our visas, we need to connect the systems at our embassies overseas with Ghana's immigration department.
The handwriting on the existing visa stickers we use is a huge concern for us since it makes it difficult for us to recognise when someone is trying to impersonate one of our visas. This will no longer be a problem, she said.
Ghana's missions in Berlin and London will be the first to begin granting e-visas to applicants travelling to Ghana when the equipment's installation and testing in Ghana are successfully completed.
This will be made available to all of Ghana's missions worldwide after the trial period. The Foreign Minister stated, "A decision will be taken on when to start issuing electronic visas when we have a solid data base of persons who are frequent travellers."
The new technology, according to the Ghana Immigration Service, would speed up the application process and aid in the instant detection and prevention of dishonest people who might seek to enter Ghana.
According to Michael Amoako Atta, Head of Public Relations for the Ghana Immigration Service, TV3 will be able to "access the system to get any information needed of suspicious individuals which can then be sent to the national security for further investigations." The new system will also help protect and secure data gathered from applicants. Additionally, it will help us protect the nation and deter undesirable criminals.
Ghana will become the fifth country in Africa to issue e-visas by the end of the year, joining over 60 other nations that already do so.