Bawumia’s Digitalization Speech Was Just A Campaign Launch – CNYO

Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia’s address on digitalization of the economy, according to the Coalition of National Youth Organizers, was a kickoff of his presidential campaign and an attempt to market himself to Ghanaians.

The group also asked the Vice President to explain to Ghanaians how the country’s existing digital platforms had helped it generate cash.

According to the Group, the country already has a number of government E-Platforms in place, so it wouldn’t be out of place if the Vice President told users what benefits the platforms bring to the national economy.

“There is a service charge for every transfer of money from one’s bank account to their mobile money account / wallet,” Dr. Bawumia, the leader of the economic team, failed to explain how the government is using this to earn revenue.

“Through digital platforms, it has become clear that telecoms corporations are increasingly metamorphosing into banking and insurance organizations.” In reaction to Dr. Bawumia’s talk on Digitizing Ghana, the Group declared, “We would love to know how the government is collecting revenue through this potential.”

The Vice President, addressing on the theme “TRANSFORMING AN ECONOMY THROUGH DIGITALIZATION- THE GHANA STORY” at the Ashesi University in Berekuso in the Eastern Region on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, highlighted a number of advantages of utilizing the Ghana Card.

Ghanaians living abroad will be able to return home with Ghana, newborns will receive Ghana, and Ghana will be the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to establish a national E-Pharmacy.

In light of this, the Coalition of National Youth Organizers has explained why the Vice President failed to inform Ghanaians about how the government plans to fund these programs.

Below is the full statement from the Group.

BAWUMIA’S SPEECH WAS A SELF APPRAISAL FORUM AND LAUNCH OF THE BAWUMIA FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN: COALITION OF NATIONAL YOUTH ORGANIZERS

It is such a disappointment that the much-hyped Bawumia speech, which was anticipated to give hope to the Ghanaian youth turned out to be nothing but self-praising and launch of the Vice President’s bid to succeed Nana Akuffo as the next flagbearer of the NPP.

Dr. Bawumia choose to talk and hype a book he wrote some years back which did not receive the acknowledgement he wanted, so he began his speech by relaunching his supposed book all over again.

Dr. Bawumia decided to bore us with things like the Ghana card, which was introduced by the administration of former President Kuffour, which was continued by the President Mills administration and concluded by the Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo-Addo’s government.

It is instructive to note that, most institutions like banks still refuse to accept the Ghana card as a form of identification.

It is important to note that, there has not been a former merging of the data on the Ghana card and other form of identification like the birth certificates, ATM cards among others.

Dr. Bawumia in his speech mentioned that, with the introduction of mobile money platform, it was discovered that there are 30 million Mobile accounts, this we doubt.

According to the Ghana Statistical Services, the total population of Ghana is a little over 30 million people, is Dr. Bawumia telling us that almost every Ghanaian owns a mobile phone?

Again is he telling us that, the fact that one owns a mobile phone, makes them an automatic subscriber of the mobile money service?

Dr. Bawumia spent time talking about the inter-operability platform which allows one to link their bank account to their mobile money account.

What he failed to tell us, is how the government is raising revenue through this means.

For every transfer of money from one’s bank account to their mobile money account/wallet, there is a service charge, Dr. Bawumia as the head of the economic team failed to tell us, how the government is taking advantage to raise revenue.

Again it has become evident that the telecommunications Companies are now metamorphosing into banks and insurance companies through digital platforms.

We would have love to know how the government is generating revenue through this opportunity.

Dr. Bawumia admits that digitization has come to stay. He made reference to the fact that e-commerce is taking over from the traditional way of doing business.

Again he admits that a lot of financial transactions are done online and a lot of Ghanaians are patronizing it, he, however, failed to tell us the modalities put in place to combat cybercrime and to assure Ghanaians that the cybercrimes we witness like mobile money fraud will be a thing of the past.

As the Chairman of the Police Council we were looking forward to hear from him how many Police Officers have been recruited and trained to Mann our cyberspace.

We want to remind the vice president that most of the digital addresses issued still mislead people to cocoa farms and dead-end roads as their final destination.

We were hoping that the Vice President again will tell us that, computer programming is going to be introduced in our basic schools to show his commitment to a digitised Ghana, but all we heard were the intention to distribute laptops and tablets which will have the hardcopy curriculum programmed on it.

A holistic look at the much-hyped but nothing new Bawumia speech event is nothing but a launch of his bid to become the next flagbearer of the NPP.