The Vice President of Ghana Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia a renounced economist and Digitization advocate has over the years trumpeted the need for African countries to embrace Digitization as a key to leapfrogging the advanced countries.
The Vice President position on digitization has been mocked by the opposition NDC as they say the Vice President is running from the economy to hide behind digitization. The opposition has downplayed the connection between Digitization and the economy. According to the Vice President there is no way we can get a strong economy without digitization, How could the government increase revenue at the port without digitization (Paperless Port) , how could could ghost names be expunged from the government payroll without digitization, how could the economy grow without a proper addressing system, how could healthcare reach our remote areas without digitization (Drone delivery system), how could we get a strong banking sector without digitization , how could Ghana Revenue Authority increase revenue without digitization etc.
In all these Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia has been recognized by the international communities as the game changer his campaign and work on digitization has won him titles like , DIGITAL MAN , DIGITAL REVOLUTIONIST The GAME CHANGER just to mention a few .
In a recent interview with the STANDARD in Kenya the Vice President has outlined the gains made in Ghana as far as Digitization Champaign is concerned.
As the Vice President of Ghana , you have been at the forefront of spearheading digitization, what has been the effect on the economy?
“In Ghana, we have really focused on pursuing digitization as an economic strategy. When you look at the world, we are now in the fourth industrial revolution globally which is a digital revolution. It is a revolution that is based on data, and systems. If you are an economy in this world and you don’t digitize you are you are going to be left behind. Africa has been left behind for too many of these periods, and I believe that digitization is a key to leapfrogging. We digitalize not for its own sake but to solve problems, formalize and build a more inclusive economy, deal with corruption and to provide services to our people more efficiently from the government side. A lot of people were excluded from the economy so we did digital IDs for our people, so we have unique identities for everybody. Once you have unique identities for everyone you will not have ghost workers on the payroll and also sort the voter registry.
We had an issue with the address system in Ghana, and through digitization, we solved the problem. Every part of the country, land or water, mansion or shark you have a unique digital address that we have rolled out in the country. This has solved a big problem as now deliveries can easily be made through e-commerce, and in the instance you are applying for a job you can easily state your address.
On financial inclusion, we have implemented mobile money interoperability. It is not just operability between the mobile companies, but interoperability between the mobile wallet and a bank account which means that every mobile money account practicably has a bank account. We were the first country in Africa to do so. Today it is very easy for someone to open a bank account in Ghana, you have your national ID card, you get onto your mobile phone and then dial a USSD Code and you chose one of the banks and there you go, you have a bank account. We have integrated all our databases which enables us to get value out of our digitization process. Digitization is the way to go for other African countries and with it, we can leapfrog other advanced countries. Today in Ghana, we are the largest medical drone delivery service in the world. We have drones flying all over the country, today we have 100 flight a delivering medicine.”
In conclusion, I will say it is very clear from the above that, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia is indeed an asset to the country and must be embraced for the future.
Best Regards
Mr. Owusu