Ghana’s Vice President has stated that the next phase of the country’s digitization efforts would be to fully adopt blockchain technology in its government operations, making it the first blockchain-powered government in Africa.
According to Business Insider Africa, Mr Mahamudu Bawumia, made this known at the 14th Regional Conference and Annual General Meeting of Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Commonwealth Africa which was held in Accra from May 6-11, 2024.
Blockchain technology has gained a global reputation for its revolutionary status across sectors, including politics. Blockchain technology can quickly trace any alteration in digital data and provide a perfect trail of all transactions conducted within it, making it a crucial and helpful tool in the fight against corruption.
Bawumia believes Ghana will adopt this technology as it would promote transparency and enable the government to combat corruption effectively.
The cutting-edge and automation features of the blockchain could help Ghana and Africa at large save billions of dollars lost to corruption, bad governance, mismanagement, and lack of accountability, he said.
Mr Bawumia also mentioned other digitization efforts of Ghana and how they have improved the country’s bottom line and efficiency.
He cited the ghana.gov portal, a one-stop platform for paying for public services electronically and enabling the government to collect GH¢201 billion since 2020, as evidence of the country’s technology adoption.
He also cited the introduction of a unique identity card known as the Ghana Card which integrates a public sector database that enabled the Controller and Accountant General’s department to fish out 29,000 ghost pensioners saving the country GH¢480 million annually.
The Ghana Card also helped the government identify 44,707 ghost names on the National Service Scheme payroll, resulting in savings of GH¢356 million.
Finally, the digitization of the passport acquisition process resulted in a massive leap in the number of passports processed by Ghanaian citizens.
The passport office saw a huge rise in applications increasing from 347,000 to 752,000, leading to a surge in revenue from GH¢12 million to GH¢94 million between 2018 and 2023.
Mr. Bawumia urged anti-corruption agencies across Africa to invest fully in initiatives like digital forensics and blockchain technology to aid the tracking, tracing, and disruption of the corruption network in the continent.
Mr. Bawumia stated that Ghana could effectively fight corruption in the country if the Central Bank of Ghana finally introduced the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) also known as the E-Cedi.
