Ghana Goes Digital With National Property Address System

The National Digital Property Address System, which is expected to make it easier to find locations in the country and boost service delivery, will be launched today [Wednesday], October 18, 2017.

The system is expected to among other things aid government policies, planning and offer accurate data for service delivery.

The system, which was designed by Ghanaian information technology firm, Vokacom, will provide an effective means of addressing every location and place in the country, using an information technology application.

Following the lack of an efficient addressing system, Ghanaians have become accustomed to relying on directions from people as well as land marks such as kiosks, mobile money vendors among others.

Citi Business News caught up with some people ahead of the launch to find out how they believe it will impact their movement within the country.

Ethel, one of them, said she believes the system will be of great benefit to Ghanaians.

“It is a good thing that government is rolling out today, it will help people to locate various locations around the country, I for one have been lost on several occasions and I have had to spend a lot on transportation on the occasions I was lost before getting to my final destination”, she said.

Kwame, who also spoke to Citi Business News, also believes the system will be beneficial in locating places accurately.

“It's a good initiative; at least we are advancing from where we currently are as a country. I mean I have been lost before and spent half of my day trying to find my destination and it was very frustrating so if this addressing system will help me locate my destinations easily, then it is a good thing.”

But unlike Ethel and Kwame, who believe the system will be of benefit to all Ghanaians, others like Peter expressed doubts that the system will work effectively and serve its purpose.

“This is Ghana, so what they will do is to introduce a new initiative and along the line, it will stop working, so let's see how effective this addressing system will be”, he said.

Among the numerous benefits of the addressing system is the potential to reduce the rise in the non-performing loans of banks which has been partly attributed to the difficulty in locating customers.

Head of Consumer Banking of Ecobank, Tara Squire, who spoke to Citi Business News, said he believes the system will turnaround the economy as the lack of an efficient addressing system has been a serious impediment for businesses and financial institutions.

“I think it's a step in the right direction to ensure that businesses and banks know who our customers, we need that information to be able to lend, it's a step in the right direction to be able to lend. it's a step in the right direction that we have an address system that we can rely on and therefore we are very keen on supporting it in every way to ensure that the system is a success because it will help us know you, and it is easier for financial institutions to have interactions with customers.”

Head of E business and Card Services with ADB Bank, Solomon Adu Atefoe, was also of the view that the system will benefit financial institutions.

“This particular system is very critical because it helps financial institutions solve all the KYC issues.Gone are the days where you will ask customers to bring along their ECG or water bills all to prove where they actually live, so now that we are going to have a digital addressing system via an app, we will just need people to give us their geographical location, and with that we can locate their collaterals and whatever they are bringing to secure loans as we will be able to evaluate them at a record time so this is really a blessing to the financial sector.”

By: Anita Arthur/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana