The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has launched a digital platform that will provide a single point of access to government services. The platform, Ghana.Gov, will also serve as a digital service and revenue collection platform.
The launch of the platform has been in pursuit of the government’s vision to digitize the economy and modernize transactions between citizens and the state.
Speaking ahead of the official launch at the Jubilee House, the Vice President expressed excitement about the fact that local companies developed the platform.
“The spirit of collaboration and innovation exhibited by the local technology companies; Hubtel, Expresspay and IT Consortium who are powering this payments platform is most admirable,” he said.
The Vice President expects the new platform to improve transparency in state transactions.
“Transactions will be recorded instantly avoiding any bribery and corruption regarding the quoted service fee and curtailing the risk of corruption .”
According to the Vice President, the launch of the platform is also the latest step in the Akufo-Addo administration’s Ghana Beyond Aid agenda because of an expected increase in revenue.
“It is estimated that about 10 to 15 percent of revenue is lost through inefficiencies, theft or other accounting schemes. Going digital means we can improve our revenue collection by an estimated GHS3 billion annually.”
Aside from this, he added that “it is expected that Ghana will derive expense savings of some GHS40 million a year as a result of this platform and that is a conservative number.”
So far, the Passport Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, the Lands Commission, the Food and Drugs Authority, the National Service Secretariat, the National Information Technology Authority, the Registrar General’s Department and the National Schools Inspectorate Authority are onboard the new Ghana.Gov platform.
Other state agencies are in the process of joining, and Vice President Bawumia anticipates that the process will be completed by the end of the year.
