Ursula Rallies Africa Leaders To Champion Digitalization

Minister of Communications and Digitalization, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has stated to other leaders in the African continent to also champion the digitalization agenda to enable their economic and future gains to be incredible.

She said digitization has huge prospects in supporting the rapid prototyping of ideas, seeding digital innovations, targeted business incubation and acceleration programs in the digital industries, and also helping to mitigate some of the challenges identified within the tech ecosystem.

Speaking at the High-Level Seminar on Accelerating Digital Transformation: Realizing Dakar’s Call to Action in Western and Central Africa in Washington DC, Mrs. Ursula Ekuful said, Ghana’s digitalization agenda has shaped a lot of sectors in the economy.

She urged other leaders on the African continent to emulate the same in ways to drive financial inclusion, close information gaps, and change the way of work despite challenges that may encounter from the initial stage of its implementation.

Ghana, she indicated has gained and seen tremendous progress in every sector of the economy since the aim to shift to the digitalization side.

“Our digital transformation journey has been challenging yet very exciting. Challenging due to continuous demand for resources from all sectors to digitize and improve business processes but the excitement is from the modest gains achieved with relatively minimal investment”.

“Since 2017, our government has taken deliberate steps to formalize our economy through digital technology. We have focused on foundational digital infrastructure to enhance connectivity, reskilling and upskilling our youth, and building interoperable platforms and a single national database on our national E ID which is linked to Ghana Revenue Authority and Tax identification Numbers (TIN) to enhance tax administration and compliance, E ID is also linked to Health Insurance, SIM registry, Pensions Authority, Companies Registry, DVLA, Passports, Digital address system, etc.”

She added, “We are also focusing on strengthening the regulatory oversight on Electronic transactions by building the capacity of the National Information Technology Agency and other regulators in the sector including our Cybersecurity Authority,y and have just launched the AfCFTA hub as a one-stop shop for all-commerce, e-logistics, courier companies, MNOs, payments systems operators, standards authority, FDA and the key regulators in the sector NCA, PCRSC, CSA, DPC, among others to promote trust and facilitate easy uptake of trade within Ghana and with Ghanaian companies.”

She said Ghana’s achievement over the period in the digitalization agenda has been successfully improving connectivity to all regions of the country, creating the enabling environment for the private sector to further invest and thrive, implementing a Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project (GRT&DIP), building over 300 high school digital labs for students and teachers use, digitizing Parliament and Cabinet – Public Procurement Systems which she indicated is projected to save the country in excess of100 million dollars per annum – digitalization of the Judicial systems and Office of the Attorney General.

Also, digitizing the Birth and Deaths Registry, Registrar General Department, Office of the Attorney General, Ghana Revenue Authority, Immigration, and critical utility agencies like the Electricity Company of Ghana ECG, Ghana Water as well as additional government payments platforms such as the GIFMIS and GHANA.GOV platforms, among others.