Vice-President launches digital platform - To facilitate access to govt services
A one stop digital platform to facilitate access and payments for government services has been launched at a ceremony at the Jubilee House in Accra.
Known as “Ghana.gov”, the platform is expected to offer a simplified experience for all government services and also make it easy for everyone to find and pay for government services.
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It is available to all citizens, residents and non-residents alike and can be accessed online at www.ghana.gov.gh or by dialing the short code *222# on any mobile phone.
The Ghana.gov consists of four main components, a web portal, mobile app and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) interface, a payment processing component, a notification component and a complaint submission medium.
Presently, it has the Passport Office, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), the Lands Commission, the National Service Secretariat, the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA), the National Information Technology Authority, the Registrar General’s Department, and the National Schools Inspectorate Authority hooked on to the platform.
The Public Procurement Authority, Data Protection Commission, National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Minerals Commission, the Council For Technical And Vocational Educational Training (COTVET) and the Ghana Post will soon be added.
Launch
The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who launched the platform yesterday, expressed the hope that it would help grow government revenue of which between 10 per cent and 15 per cent was estimated to be lost through inefficiencies, theft and other accounting irregularities.
“Going digital means that we can improve our revenue collections by an estimated GH¢3 billion annually. Also, the sheer convenience of enabling all of us to pay for government services with our mobile money, our bank cards, our new GHqr code, our Fintech apps on our phones or at any bank branch, will go a long way in helping increase revenues for government,” he said.
Dr Bawumia added that “Ghana is expected to make savings of some GH¢40 million a year as a result of this platform.”
The Vice-President, therefore, described the introduction of the platform as an important milestone in the digitalisation of the economy of the country and one which would also help realise the vision of the Ghana Beyond Aid agenda of the government.
He said the launch should serve as the catalyst to speed up the addition of all the remaining metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) onto the platform by the end of the year.
Government-citizen relations
Giving a historical antecedent about the connection between the government and the citizens over the years, Dr Bawumia said bureaucratic form of interaction had been a frustrating experience for most Ghanaians, resulting in a culture of paying bribes and engaging middle men to obtain basic services.
To that end, he said, the www.Ghana.gov would redefine how people engaged with the government, indicating that Ghana.gov citizen app, which would soon be published, would have important features that would change “the way we connect to official information, report issues in our communities and exchange critical data.”
He commended local technology companies, Hubtel, Expresspay and IT Consortium and expressed delight that the platform was developed and was being managed in the country.
Community connectivity
While commending the collaboration between the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, and the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), host of the platform, the Vice-President said the full scale of benefits of the platform would not be realised until there was improved connectivity at the district and community level.
“Our farmers, the traders, the artisans, cooperative members, bakers, foodstuff sellers, transport owners, and personal service providers will all demand public services. Their access to WiFi connectivity and to Ghana.gov will be the ultimate digital inclusiveness that can revolutionise rural development of the future,” he pointed out.
Dr Bawumia gave an assurance that the country had also strengthened its cyber security infrastructure which would continue to be a focus as the system evolved.
Digital agenda
The Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, for her part, said the government had since assuming office been implementing a massive transformation of the country through technology as it vigorously and systematically pursued the digital Ghana agenda.
She said Ghana must evolve quickly in response to the transformation wrought by the Internet and mobile technology, adding that since data had become the new oil, the country must integrate its systems to derive maximum benefits from propositions such as machine learning, block chain, Internet-of-things, big-data analytics and other novel technologies.
To that end, she said, the government was focused on providing the key infrastructure to support the rapid digitisation of the country through projects such as the National Identification Card, the Ghana Post GPS Digital Address system, mobile money interoperability and the GhIPSS payments platform.
“We are also in the process of implementing a rural connectivity project to link the unserved and underserved areas of the country within the next two years. Some four million citizens will be connected to voice and data telephony services in the remotest parts of our country,” Mrs Owusu Ekuful assured.
She stated that a connected country would make the services accessible to all, adding “we are determined to build the digital infrastructure to enable this transformation to succeed.