Bawumia Says All Gov't Payments Will Go Electronic By June 2020

From June 2020 all government payments will be done electronically, Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia has hinted.

He said the purpose of the digitalisation is to increase government revenue and facilitate ease of doing business.

Dr Bawumia cited the tourism sector where he said revenue has increased fourfold.

“So you can see what the impact is going to be,” he told a conference of Digital Roadmap at the Labadi Beach Hotel Wednesday.

The conference brought together relevant agencies in the telecommunication space, including the National Communication Authority and Ministry of Communication. It is under the theme, ‘Moving Ghana Beyond Aid: Expanding the Local Digital Economy.’

It is the agenda of government to digitalise the economy of Ghana and the process is ongoing steadily.

So far, government has allocated $1.5million for the automation of the auditing process in the country.

This was to make the Ghana Audit Service more responsive to the changing dynamics in the fight against corruption.

In addition, $500,000 was allocated to it under the Public Financial Management (PFM) project to support the Audit Service train its staff in the use of computer-aided tools and to build capacity for greater performance.

The same can be said of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority and the Judicial Service of Ghana where piloting digitisation is at advanced stages.

Expressing excitement about the progress of implementation of the digitisation agenda, the Vice President said, “We think that by June next year we should have systems where all government payments will only be done electronically. The platform now exists.”

Recounting the many other places where the digitalisation is taking place, he said, “we are also beginning the process of digital land registry. Passport applications are now online.”

In addition, Dr Bawumia said the Health Ministry is now in the process of digitalising all health records.

“We want to make sure that we go paperless in the health sector so that when you move from one hospital to another you don’t have to carry file.”

On the National Health Insurance Scheme, the vice president added renewal of registrations can now be done online.

“We are now renewing the NHIS registration cards by mobile phones. This has raked in increased renewals. There is an average of 70, 000 renewals in a week,” he said.

---myjoyonline