New Secure ECOWAS Brown Card Unveiled

A new secured ECOWAS Brown Card to check the use of fake brown cards in the system has been unveiled. The new card, which is an improved certificate, is a single leaflet format with security features and a hologram. It is printed in invisible ink and visible only under ultra violet light. It has on spot check watermarked with a two-colour secured fluorescent fibre inlaid. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and General Secretary of the Ghana Bureau of the ECOWAS Brown Card Insurance Scheme, Mr Gabriel Glover, introduced the card at separate capacity building seminars for the stakeholders at Aflao and Ho in the Volta Region. The participants included personnel from the Ghana Immigration Service and the Police MTTU, as well as freight forwarders. The seminar was to educate stakeholders on the operations of the scheme and the role that stakeholders needed to play to make the scheme effective. The ECOWAS Brown Card Scheme is the sub-regional version of the Green Card in the European Community, the Pink Card of the Arab countries and the Yellow Card within the East African Economic block. Mr Glover explained that the scheme was introduced to help promote free movement of persons and goods within the sub-region. He said it played an important role in the integration process and promoted trade in the region. �The ECOWAS Brown Card Insurance Scheme was established by Protocol on the free movement of persons and goods across national boundaries of ECOWAS-member states,� he explained. Mr Glover said the scheme was one of the first protocols to be implemented since the birth of the ECOWAS in 1975. He said Ghana established the National Bureau of the scheme in 1988 which had been operational to date.