<<Print>>

Former Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan, has commended the Vice President of the Republic, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, over his public lecture on the theme “TRANSFORMING AN ECONOMY THROUGH DIGITALIZATION- THE GHANA STORY” on Tuesday, November 2, 2021 at the Ashesi University.

Dr. Bawumia underscored some important digital initiatives and successes of the Akufo-Addo government in digitizing the economy.

He touched on areas like the biometric national ID card, property address system, mobile money interoperability, security and education, health system; outlining what the government has done and is doing to digitally transform these areas among others.

On health, Dr. Bawumia spoke extensively on how the government is using technology to improve the health system, hence highlighting the digitization of hospitals and medical records, digital renewal of national health insurance, delivery of medical supplies to rural communities through drones, among others.

On mobile money interoperability, he said; ''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'.”

The Vice President further threw more light on the progress of the government's digitization drive.

Commenting on the public lecture during Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', Kwamena Duncan was elated about the government's moves to digitize the economy.

According to him, the Vice President gave Ghanaians what he termed as the ''software of the economy''.

He stressed that digitization is the way forward for Ghana's development.

To him, he (Dr. Bawumia) has clipped the wings of the opposition parties, particularly the National Democratic Congress (NDC) by dealing extensively with all sectors of the economy.

" . . they have no clue and do not understand that, in order to build a very bouyant economy, what you have to do is that you make the economic system efficient and to make the economic system efficient; it will not require queues in offices. It will not require 3-day, 1-week, 1-month application for a particular service. It is just by way of your mobile phone, quickly then you do it," he stated.