Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has successfully launched the Ghana Card Number at Birth initiative.

This initiative seeks to give a Ghana Card number for newly born babies to improve nationwide service delivery.

Addressing a gathering during the launch at the Ga North Hospital in Ofankor in the Greater Accra Region, the Vice President highlighted the importance of the initiative.

He alluded to the importance of the initiative stating that the Ghana card being issued to newly born babies can easily be leveraged in the next population census.

Dr. Bawumia said, "by the time for the next population census, we will know the total number of Ghanaians and you won’t have to go and count anymore because the data will be digitally provided and the data will be clear from what we are doing.”

Dr. Bawumia added that the initiative will also cut down on the cost spent on censuses and help assess the progress of various childhood interventions which the government intends to bring.

“This Ghana Card at Birth system will also offer a reliable base for assessing progress in childhood health interventions and enhance the well-being and economic development of detailed population registers and reduce that reliance on senior censuses and associated costs. It will improve the accuracy of child mortality statistics and aid in the computation of district-level fertility estimates and also track enrolment in schools.”

“This database will also allow us to deal with the problem of child trafficking, which is a major issue when a child is trafficked and you can arrest the perpetrator, you will be able to find the parents of the child,” the Vice President added.

The Ghana Card would, however, be handed over to the child when he or she attains the age of 15 years, by which time the child’s biometrics would have fully developed for capture.