Digitization Of Ghana's Economy Top Priority Of Government

Mr. Kwasi Boateng Adjei, a Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), has said the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government is committed to ensuring the formalization of Ghana's economy through digitization of property and parcels of land across the country.

He said this would have a tremendous implication in terms of revenue mobilization for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and a major focus of the MLGRD to improve Internally Generated Fund (IGF) of MMDAs.

Mr Adjei said this at a sensitization programme for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives and Coordinating Directors held to deliberate on Naming and Digital Property Addressing in the Greater Accra Region.

He said the sensitization was a renewed effort by Government to ensure the completion of Street Naming and Property Addressing and also focus on ensuring the Digitizing of Property towards effectively opening up the economy.

It is expected to adequately orient participants on the expected activities and outcomes of the Street Naming and Property Addressing initiative of Government.

It is also to prepare them towards ensuring that your respective MMDAs continue and would successfully deploy the Ghana Post GPS and complete the Street Naming exercise.

Mr Adjei, who is also the Member of Parliament for New Juaben North, said the success of the programme would depend on the commitment of the Regional Coordinating Council to monitoring and providing relevant hand-holding support through the Regional Land Use Spatial PA Office.

He said the vision of the initiative is to achieve nationwide use of Spatial Data Information for good governance and socio-economic development through the development, management and dissemination of a Property Addressing system.

The Deputy Minister said project was also aimed at improving the quality and reduced costs related to geographic information, to reduce duplication of effort among agencies.

It is also expected that the process will facilitate efficient service delivery in areas such as mail delivery, emergencies services, fire service, and directions to properties and businesses and for revenue generation by the MMDAs.

He urged the RCC to provide the requisite support for the Regional LUSPA Directorates to effectively assist the MMDAs in executing the agenda.

Mr Ishmael Ashitey, Greater Accra Regional Minister, said Ghana is adopting the approach of integrating street naming and house numbering strategies towards the creation of a reliable tax database for improved revenue mobilisation at MMDAs.

'It is also expected to close the gap between the ever increasing level of recurrent expenditure and the limited resources available to MMDAs to be able to deliver much needed services to the citizenry.

He said the high space of development of properties has overtaken the rate at which assemblies are able to put in place appropriate measures and strategies for effective local plan implementation and enforcement.

Mr Ashitey said a considerable number of properties have no authorised permits and identifiable addresses since most of such physical developments hardly go through laid down approval process at the MMDAs.

He said the introduction of the Digital Property Addressing System in Ghana was expected to make it easier to find location and boost service delivery and boats of indispensable benefits and that this technology would promote effective governance and enable government agencies such as the security services and health professionals respond to distress calls by people within the shortest time.

He expressed the commitment of the Regional Coordinating Council to support and facilitate the project for the implementation to be carried out.