Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has outlined Ghana’s digital agenda and the progress made so far in the digitalisation of the country’s economy.
He indicated that barring any unforeseen circumstances, every new-born child delivered in Ghana next year will get, within a few months, a Ghanacard number.
The Vice President announced these measures yesterday whilst speaking on the theme “TRANSFORMING AN ECONOMY THROUGH DIGITALIZATION- THE GHANA STORY” at the Ashesi University, Berekuso.
The lecture, which was attended by members of academia, students, the clergy, chiefs, and other members of the general public, was the latest by Vice President Bawumia.
It was aimed at getting the citizenry, particularly the youth, to have a greater appreciation of the work being done in the digital space, and solicit their views on other areas that may need special attention.
The public lecture was to shed more light on the digital strides chalked by the Akufo-Addo government since it assumed office as part of measures to make public services more accessible and affordable.
Vice President Bawumia said the actual card will be issued when the child is grown and the biometrics are fully formed after age 6.
This, he said, forms part of digital reforms being undertaken at the Births and Deaths Registry to make it more in tune with the times and provide better protected information on the citizens and residents of Ghana.
On the digital agenda, Dr Bawumia said, “Easily one of the most depressing visits I have paid to a government office during my time as Vice President was to the Births and Deaths Registry headquarters. There clearly was insufficient investment in the institution. It was messy and it was sad. It turned out that the Births and Deaths Registry had three separate databases as registers for births and deaths and these databases were in silos. It is not surprising therefore that corruption and fake birth certificates thrived in this environment.
“Thankfully, the process of digitization of the records is almost complete and the three databases have been cleaned up and integrated. Furthermore, we are integrating the births and deaths register with the databases of Ghana Health Service, National Identification Authority, Ghana Statistical Service, Immigration and the Police so that the record of births and deaths should be consistent across all these databases.”
Bawumia lists major digital interventions under Akufo-Addo
Vice President Bawumia listed major challenges within the Ghanaian economic and social space, which the Akufo-Addo government has successfully addressed, or is addressing through its digitization drive.
He recalled how the NPP, prior to assuming office in 2017, had identified these problems in the Ghanaian system, and how it envisioned to solve the problems through digitization.
“Our system had major shortcomings and presented challenges for the digitalization of the economy,” Dr. Bawumia noted.
The major shortcomings, Dr. Bawumia noted, included lack of unique identification for citizens, inefficiency and corruption in the delivery of public service, lack of functional national property address system, existence of large informal sector and dominance of cash payments, manual data base in public services, difficulty in collecting taxes for development, inefficiency in the delivery of health services and inefficiency in security surveillance.
“We were operating in a system where most of the population could not be uniquely identified. It was possible to be born in Ghana, live a full life, die and be buried and there would be no trace of you on any documentation that you ever lived and died in this country,” Dr. Bawumia added to sum up the magnitude of the shortcomings the government has fixed.
Biometric national ID card
On the issue of lack of unique identification of citizens, the Vice President said the implementation of the biometric national ID cards by the government is addressing this major issue.
“So far, 15.5 million people have been enrolled on the Ghanacard by the NIA and most of the population will be enrolled by 2022. The issuance of the Ghanacard has provided Ghana with a database that will be the anchor for all transactions in the future, providing unique identity to all individuals.”
“With the Ghanacard: the identity of people (even dead people) can be established using their fingerprints,” the Vice President said.
Property Address System
On lack of proper address system, Dr. Bawumia said, “to solve the problem of a lack of working address system in the country, we have leveraged on GPS technology to implement a digital address system for Ghana capturing every square inch of land. In the process, we have identified and provided unique addresses for all properties in Ghana (7.5 million properties).
“The Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA) has also provided street names and house numbers for every street in Ghana.”
Vice President Bawumia described Ghana’s property address system as unique, because Ghana is the first country in Africa to implement a digital system in combination with house numbers and street names.
“It is a superior address system and leapfrogs the addressing systems that have been implemented and in use in many advanced countries,” he added.
Mobile Money Interoperability
Dr. Bawumia said one of the biggest problems which was impeding financial sector development in the country was financial exclusion. He said most of the population were excluded from fully participating in the financial system because they were unable to open and operate bank and financial services accounts – a problem he said reinforced the dominance of cash payments.
“When we assumed office in 2017, we decided to use digitization to solve this problem. The data showed that 70% of people in Ghana had no bank accounts but 80% of the adult population had mobile phones with 30 million mobile money accounts.
“It was also not possible to send money to customers of different telecom companies. So we asked the questions: why can’t we make it possible to send mobile money across different telecom companies and also why can’t the mobile money account function like a bank account ‘by making it interoperable with bank accounts? The answer to these questions was the implementation of the ground-breaking mobile money interoperability system.
“Thanks to the Bank of Ghana and Ghana Interbank Payments and Settlement System (GhIPSS) the mobile money payments interoperability has made it possible to transfer money seamlessly across different mobile money providers and between bank accounts and mobile wallets.
“It has also solved the major problem of the over 70% of people not having bank accounts. Today, because of mobile money interoperability (MMI), you can transfer money from a customer of one telco to a customer of a different telco and also make payments from your mobile money account into any bank account and you can receive payments from any bank account into your mobile money account. You can receive interest on savings, acquisition of loan (e.g. qwick loan) on your mobile wallets. As a result of MMI over 90% of the adult population now have access to a “bank account”.”
Vice President Bawumia added that Ghana is the first country in Africa to implement interoperability between bank accounts and mobile wallets, describing it as “no small feat, especially at the cost we did it.”
Digitization of government services
Vice President Bawumia noted that hitherto, service delivery in the public sector was replete with so many bottlenecks including delays, long queues and bribery and corruption.
However, with the implementation of digitization, he added, government services such as applications for scholarships, passports and drivers licence, services at the ports, registrar general department, renewal of national health insurance cards, motor insurance, among many others, have all been digitized, thus making it easier for citizens to access these services and make payments through their mobile phones, and on government’s integrated digital platform, the Ghana.gov.
Broadening tax revenue
On the issue of domestic revenue, Dr. Bawumia noted that a number of digital initiatives have been undertaken, which include designating the Ghana Card number as tax identification numbers, provision of digital address system, financial inclusion, formalisation of the informal sector, digitization of the processes of filing taxes, etc.
These, he said, have contributed significantly in broadening the tax net to aid revenue mobilization.
High interest rate
“A significant driver of high interest rates in Ghana is the level of risk associated with lending. The issues that pertain to risk include the absence of a unique identity for the population and the lack of an address system,” Dr. Bawumia observed.
With the implementation of a unique identity and providing unique addresses for properties, lending rates, the Vice President noted, should come further down, having already been down due to the central bank’s “excellent monetary policy stance.”
Improving health system
Vice President Bawumia noted that government’s digitization drive is improving efficiency in the health system through digitization of hospitals and medical records, digital renewal of national health insurance, delivery of medical supplies to rural communities through drones, among others.
Security and Education
The provision of thousands of CCTV’s to the Ghana Police Service, with three networked national command centers in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale, is another digital intervention, which Dr. Bawumia listed as improving safety of citizens.
Finally, in the education sector, the Vice President stressed on how the government has provided free WiFi to senior secondary schools as well as some tertiary institutions, to improve teaching and learning.
He said the provision of free special-feature laptops to all teachers on Ghana to will enable digital access to text books and course outlines directly from their lap tops.
First National E-Pharmacy In sub-Saharan Africa
Vice President Bawumia said Ghana is set to become the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to have a national scale E-Pharmacy and one of only a few countries in the world with a national scale E-pharmacy.
This would involve the digitization of pharmacies across the country and enable consumers to have access to a wider scale of pharmacies in their quest to purchase medicines, while giving regulators to confirm the authenticity or otherwise of drugs being purchased.
Vice President Bawumia said the introduction of digitization in the sale and regulation of drugs formed part of President Akufo-Addo’s vision to make life better and government services more accessible to the ordinary Ghanaian.
“Patients or people generally face difficulties when trying to find medicines in pharmacies. They have no way of knowing which pharmacies have the medicines. They could go to five pharmacies before getting lucky. Sometimes patients are directed to go to specific pharmacies to buy the medicine, denying them any advantage there might be of choosing from a lower priced shop. People also don’t know what the prices of the medicines are at different pharmacies and tend in their time of vulnerability to just buy at the prices offered when they find the drug. It is also difficult to tell whether the medicines are genuine or fake. There is also the problem of drug abuse with prescription medicines like Tramadol.
“To address these problems, in 2019, I challenged the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana to digitize the operations of pharmacies in Ghana. Following this and working with my office, the Pharmacy Council in collaboration with the private sector has completed work on a digital platform for all pharmacies in Ghana and a pilot of 45 pharmacies is currently ongoing.
“Basically, the digital E-Pharmacy platform will offer the opportunity to everyone through a mobile phone to upload your prescriptions and find out which pharmacies near you have the medicines. Secondly you can compare the prices for the same drug offered by different prices so that you can buy from the lowest priced pharmacies.”
Consumers will also be able to order the drug and pay for it on the phone through mobile money or GhQR (Scan and Pay), etc. The medicines are then delivered to the customers at home through a courier service.
“The E-Pharmacy will enable Ghana address the issue of drug abuse. Those prescribed controlled medicines like Tramadol for example will only be given a one-time CODE sent via SMS (once the prescription is uploaded) to use at the pharmacy. The e-pharmacy platform will also check fake or counterfeit medicines because the platform will be linked to the FDA which will monitor the batch numbers of all products real time. Any drug for which the FDA does not have a batch number will be classified as fake.”
The E-Pharmacy is scheduled to be launched before the end of the year, making Ghana the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to have a national scale E-Pharmacy and one of only a few countries in the world with a national scale E-pharmacy.
Ghana Card To Become E-Passport
Vice President Bawumia has revealed that Ghana’s unique biometric identification card, the Ghanacard, will soon become an electronic passport for all Ghanaians.
The newest function of the Ghanacard, the Vice President indicated, will be used an e-passport for Ghanaian citizens travelling back home.
“It is not widely known that the Ghanacard is also an electronic passport (e-passport) that contains the biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of travelers.
“We have been working with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) this year to globally activate the e-passport function of the Ghanacard and I am happy to announce that on 13th October 2021, Ghana officially became the 79th member of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Public Key Directory (PKD) community. The ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD) is a central repository for exchanging the information required to authenticate e-passports.”
Throwing more light on the e-passport function, Dr. Bawumia said the PKD allows border control authorities to confirm in less than ten seconds that the e-passport was issued by the right authority, has not been altered, and is not a copy or cloned document.
Dr. Bawumia added that a ceremony would be held in Montreal, Canada in the first quarter of 2022 to enable what is known as a Country Signing Certificate Authority to be imported into the ICAO PKD System.
“This means that the Ghanacard will be recognized as an e-passport and can be read and verified in all ICAO compliant borders (in 197 countries and 44,000 airports in the world).
“When this happens, holders of the Ghanacard will be allowed to board any flight to Ghana. Furthermore, the good news for diasporan Ghanaians is that when the Ghana Immigration Service is linked to the NIA architecture, diasporan Ghanaians who hold the Ghanacard should not have to obtain visas to travel to Ghana.”
The world class features of the Ghanacard has been acknowledged by international experts, and Dr. Bawumia expressed delight that national ID project was “executed by the NIA in collaboration with a world class Ghanaian private sector firm, (IMS).”
