Ghanaians would have observed, over the past few years, a deliberate but slow process to transform the country’s way of conducting normal business from the 19th century, archaic ways of doing things to a more structured and advanced modern technological ways of achieving better results in even much quicker time.
For a country that had seen unbelievably extreme levels of corruption with civil servants and government officials taking advantage of a system they have become so familiar with over the years, thereby rendering government with ridiculously low revenue and shocking levels of debt, this new gradual system of digitization offers a breath of fresh air in every sense of the word.
Since the NPP secured power in 2016, and consolidated victory four years later in 2020, only one man has demonstrated the unique capability to tackle Ghana’s problems from the very foundation.
A Modern Day Visionary
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is Ghana’s Vice President and the face of the ruling New Patriotic Party’s digitisation agenda.
An impressive academician and technocrat, Bawumia was tapped by then candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to serve as his running mate for the 2008 Ghana Presidential elections.
Bawumia left his position as deputy Bank of Ghana Governor to take the dip into politics behind Nana Addo, a seasoned political operator who recognised the young economist’s brilliant technocratic skills and his knack for public speaking.
The two won political power eight years later in 2016, defeating incumbent leader John Dramani Mahama.
Since taking power, Bawumia has become known as Mr Digitisation, because he has hung his hat on dragging the country – kicking and screaming if need be – into the 21st century.
Whilst it has become a favourite knock on him by his political opponents, Bawumia’s emphasis on taking Ghana digital is actually the only thing that might save this nation.
Successive governments and leaders have tried everything else and nothing appears to be working.
However, Dr Bawumia has placed a laser focus on digitalising Ghana to match up with the rest of the world.
In the 21st century world we currently inhabit, there is more fortune in tech than almost anywhere else – Silicon Valley produces tons of billionaires every year.
The most famous wealthy people today – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg – are all products of the tech world.
The world has changed and we need to change with it, and out of all Ghanaian leaders, Dr Bawumia is the only one who appears to have recognised that.
Ghana’s Future and Digitization
With the introduction of the Ghana Card for instance, the Vice President has said that the government has identified and curbed quite a significant number of individual Ghanaian public servants attempting to steal monies from the state that they do not qualify to have.
One of Ghana’s major problems throughout different administrations has been the inability to properly and efficiently raise revenue through taxation.
With a good chunk of the populace in the informal sector, millions of people fall outside the tax net and a few are faced with the majority of the tax burden.
With the Ghana card set to serve as Tax Identification Numbers (TIN) for Ghanaians going forward, that measure alone would widen the tax net at a rate never before seen in Ghanaian history.
Perhaps, Bawumia was right after all when comparing the value of the Ghana card to interchanges, because the revenue it can generate for the country can indeed build multiple interchanges.