Lending Rates To Go Down Due To Modernization Of Ghana's Economy

Vice president Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said the modernization of Ghana’s economy will eventually bring down lending rates charged by commercial banks on loans.

According to Dr. Bawumia the move will also help in transforming the country’s economy.

Speaking at the launch of the E-Certificate system introduced by the Registrar General’s Department, he said government is keen on modernizing many sectors of the economy to improve ease of doing business in the country.

The Registrar General’s Department (RGD) has successfully implemented the online registration of companies, as well as the authorization of operation of businesses.

These functions are supported by a number of services on-line, including the e-Shop which allows company searches, reservation of company names and the booking of marriage ceremonies amongst others.

Online transactions
This has resulted in significant uptake by Ghanaian businesses using the paperless system. By the first half of the year, over 6,855 online transactions were conducted via the Registrar-General’s portal.

There has been substantial growth in annual online transaction numbers, from a mere 102 in 2015, to around 3000 in 2016 and to over 11,015 from January to September 2017.

Over 60,000 businesses registered with the RGD from January to September 2017, compared to 54,000 for the whole of 2016.

Revenue generated for September 2017 stands at GH₵44 million - which matches revenue generated from January to December 2016.

The Head of IT at the Registrar Generals Department, Doris Ampadu-Ameyaw said, businesses can conduct their end-to-end business registration on the RGD portal, resulting in the issuance of an e-certificate.

“Linked to the RGD portal is a fully functional e-payment platform which allows payments to be made in the course of online transactions. This is in line with government’s commitment to deepen leveraging technology to improve the ease of doing business in Ghana and to enhance the business competitiveness of the country,” she said.

According to Mrs. Ampadu-Ameyaw, an interesting new feature introduced to the automation of the RGD processes is the deployment of the e-shop information platform, which facilitates the search or requests for data regarding companies registered in Ghana.

She said that in line with the commitment to enhance and enrich customer experience, her outfit was in the process of implementing a queue management system at the front office to improve customer experience. This she said will give true meaning to the ease of doing business in the country.

E-certificate
The e-certificate and e-shop platforms are end-to-end registration portals developed and deployed by GCNet as part of the broad World Bank sponsored e-Gov project. It leverages ICT opportunities to generate employment enhancement and growth under the e-Gov application for the Revenue Generating Agencies and the Registrar General’s Department.

RGD systems are integrated with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) with plans to advance to link up with Ghana Investment Promotion Centre in the exchange of data to facilitate the ease of doing business in Ghana.

The data exchange is to encourage a paperless registration and tax regime aimed at significantly reducing administrative and operational overhead costs. It will greatly ease doing business, while maximizing revenue mobilization for accelerated development.