His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on 10th January 2020, conducted an official tour of Intelligent Card Production Systems (ICPS), a subsidiary of Margins ID Group and the manufacturing hub for the national identity project. The visit provided the Presidency with a firsthand assessment of the technical operations and security protocols governing the production of the Ghana Card.

Upon his arrival, the President was received by the CEO Moses Baiden Jnr, Deputy CEO Kwesi Baiden, alongside the company’s Board of Directors and departmental heads. The visit served as a strategic briefing on the industrial capacity supporting the National Identification Authority’s (NIA) ongoing registration efforts.   

During the inspection, President Akufo-Addo conducted a comprehensive walkthrough of the production floor, observing the end-to-end manufacturing process. He focused specifically on the high-security integration and the meticulous quality control measures maintained by the ICPS technical team.

The tour highlighted the specialised expertise of the local workforce in managing complex card personalisation and biometric data embedding. Following the demonstration of these technical capabilities, President Akufo-Addo noted the high standards of “excellence and care” demonstrated by the staff in handling the nation’s secure identification documents.

Founded in 2004, ICPS was established to manufacture smart, secure, and fraud-resistant documents under stringent security conditions, meeting global standards for national identity protection.

With an annual production capacity of 200 million cards, the company’s portfolio includes the first Ghana Card, NHIS cards, and loyalty cards, as well as advanced services such as card personalisation, milling and embedding, and flexographic printing.    

Reflecting on the scale of the operation, H.E Akufo-Addo expressed his satisfaction with the facility’s output and the significance of its local ownership. In a brief address following the tour, he remarked “My team has put together a speech for me, and after what I have seen here today, I am determined to make sure this project works.”

President Akufo-Addo further attributed the logistical success of the Ghana Card Mass Registration Exercise to the production efficiency of ICPS. He emphasised that the facility’s majority Ghanaian ownership remains a critical factor in the project’s sustainability and success.

With a proven track record of meeting stringent global requirements, ICPS is the first company in Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve EMV certification and the first on the continent to attain Intergraf certification at the Central Banking Level. The company currently stands as the only entity in West Africa to hold Intergraf certification at the Government Level.

ICPS continues to uphold a robust suite of international certifications, including: PCI CP (Payment Card Industry Card Production & Provisioning), ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management), ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (Information Security Management), ISO 22301:2019 (Business Continuity Management), ISO 14298:2022 (Management of Security Printing Processes), ISO 20000-1:2018 (Service Management).

This strategic engagement marked a significant operational milestone for the National ID Project, reinforcing the technical partnership between the private sector and the government. The management of ICPS reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining these international standards as the company continues to drive Ghana’s national digitization agenda.