During the 20th Ghana Club 100 Awards, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia emphasized the advantages of the government’s digitalization programme for the country’s economy.
The NPP flagbearer underlined that by minimizing human participation through the Ghana Card identity system, the government’s digitalization drive is combating corruption in government services including passport acquisition and port clearance.
In addition, Bawumia reaffirmed the government’s commitment to fostering an environment that encourages business growth and acknowledged the critical role played by the private sector in economic development.
Dr. Bawumia outlined the numerous problems, including as tax evasion, lawlessness, identity fraud, and corruption, when considering the difficulties presented by an unregulated informal economy.
According to Dr. Bawumia, the government started a thorough formalization process that mainly relies on digitization in order to address these issues and realize the potential of the economy.
“You look at an economy in the informal sense which turned to be undisciplined, the society is undisciplined because the economy is informal and there are no consequences for bad actions, you have a society where corruption prevails, you have lawlessness, you have a tax dodging society, you have an unbanked society, you have a loan repayment dodging society, identity fraud, people assuming identities of others, lack of address systems, age cheating, fake insurance, fake birth certificates, fake passports, no functional address systems, ghost workers on government payrolls.
“These ills of the informal economy that we really inherited made it very difficult for the economy to transform to its potential. That is why we set out to formalize the economy to make sure that the economy works in a transparent system. That area of formalization of the economy we realized heavily on digitalization of the economy to formalize the economy.
“This is why we have been moving sturdily and we have made a lot of progress in this particular area. Of course, the anchor for the digitalization programme has been the Ghana Card that we issued. Today, we have enrolled over a 17million people on the Ghana Card, today we have linked all bank accounts to the Ghana Card, and linked all SIM cards to the Ghana Card, TIN is your Ghana Card number, NHIS number is your Ghana Card number, today we have linked the Ghana Card to the Controller and Accountant General Department payroll. Today we are increasing this formalization of the economy as a result of digitalisation, we are digitalizing all government services through Ghana.gov.gh and so on.
“All these bring transparency and that helps businesses, it makes the system clearer, it reduces corruption because you can get services without actually going to meet anybody who will demand a bribe.”
