Bernard Allotey Jacobs has eulogized Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, for his public lecture on the digitization strides made by the Akufo-Addo government which he delivered at the Ashesi University on Tuesday, November 2, 2021.
Giving a keynote address under the theme ''Transforming An Economy Through Digitization: The Ghana Story'', the Vice President touched on some key digitization programmes implemented by the government and other initiatives in the pipeline.
With digitization as a 4th industrial revolution, Dr. Bawumia used the platform to tell the Ghanaian success of how the Akufo-Addo government has used digitization to achieve a number of milestones.
Assessing Dr. Bawumia's lecture, the former Central Regional Chairman of the NDC, Bernard Allotey Jacobs is fully convinced that Dr. Bawumia is the next Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana.
Allotey Jacobs touted the Vice President's delivery as superb and believed, without doubts, that he will become President of Ghana in 2025.
''Yesterday presentation was like a special or something unique that is being created that will move this country forward . . . in the next eight (8) years, Bawumia means business," he said.
He called on Ghanaians to support the Akufo-Addo administration, particularly the Vice President, stressing their initiatives are what will transform Ghana.
"God bless Bawumia. Yesterday, it was so unique, extraordinary . . . there is some magic in that man. For a long time, [this country] we haven't figured a specific thing that we should do to develop the nation. Kwame Nkrumah came with that vision and since he passed on, that is it but we're seeing the re-emergence of Kwame Nkrumah again in another form," he asserted.
Allotey Jacobs made these submissions during a panel discussion on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo'.
Highlights: Veep's Public Lecture
E-Passport
The Vice President announced the Ghanacard, which forms part of the Akufo-Addo administration's digital initiatives to transform the economy, will soon be recognized globally as an 'e-passport'.
He stated; ''It is not widely known that the Ghanacard is also an electronic passport (e-passport) that contains the biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of travelers. Government has been working with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) this year to globally activate the e-passport function of the Ghanacard and I am happy to announce that on 13th October 2021, Ghana officially became the 79th member of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Public Key Directory (PKD) community''.
Throwing more light on the e-passport function, Dr. Bawumia said the PKD allows border control authorities to confirm in less than ten seconds that the e-passport was issued by the right authority, has not been altered, and is not a copy or cloned document.
''Ghana’s Country Signing Certificate Authority would therefore soon be imported into the ICAO PKD System through what is known as a Key ceremony. The Key Ceremony for Ghana will be held at the ICAO headquarters in Montreal Canada by the 1st quarter of 2022.''
''This means that by the end of the first quarter of 2022, the Ghanacard will be recognized globally as an e-passport and can be read and verified in all ICAO compliant borders (i.e. in 197 countries and 44,000 airports in the world). When this happens, holders of the Ghanacard will be allowed to board any flight to Ghana'', he expounded.
He also stressed that making the Ghanacard an e-passport will ensure that Ghanaians in the diaspora no longer obtain visas to travel to Ghana.
''Furthermore, the good news for diasporan Ghanaians is that when the Ghana Immigration Service is linked to the NIA architecture, diasporan Ghanaians who hold the Ghanacard should not have to obtain visas to travel to Ghana.''
Ghanacard Benefits
Over 15 million Ghanaians are currently enrolled on the Ghana card, he revealed.
The Veep further underscored the benefits of the Ghana card emphasizing ''with the Ghanacard the identity of people (even dead people) can be established using their fingerprints. Ghanaian and other embassies abroad will be able to establish the identity of Ghanaians using their fingerprints. Identity can be established even without the Ghanacard as long as you have been enrolled on the database''.
Every Baby To Get Ghanacard Number
Also, barring any unforeseen circumstances, every new born child delivered in Ghana next year will get, within a few months, a Ghanacard number.
“Easily one of the most depressing visits I have paid to a government office during my time as Vice President was to the Births and Deaths Registry headquarters. There clearly was insufficient investment in the institution. It was messy and it was sad. It turned out that the Births and Deaths Registry had three separate databases as registers for births and deaths and these databases were in silos. It is not surprising therefore that corruption and fake birth certificates thrived in this environment,” he noted.
“Thankfully, the process of digitization of the records is almost complete and the three databases have been cleaned up and integrated. Furthermore, we are integrating the births and deaths register with the databases of Ghana Health Service, National Identification Authority, Ghana Statistical Service, Immigration and the Police so that the record of births and deaths should be consistent across all these databases”, Dr. Bawumia further stated.
Property Address System
On lack of proper address system, Dr. Bawumia said ''to solve the problem of a lack of working address system in the country, we have leveraged on GPS technology to implement a digital address system for Ghana capturing every square inch of land. In the process, we have identified and provided unique addresses for all properties in Ghana (7.5 million properties)".
“The Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA) has also provided street names and house numbers for every street in Ghana."
Dr. Bawumia described Ghana’s property address system as unique, because Ghana is the first country in Africa to implement a digital system in combination with house numbers and street names.
“It is a superior address system and leapfrogs the addressing systems that have been implemented and in use in many advanced countries,” he added.
Improving the health system
Dr. Bawumia also spoke extensively on how the government's digitization drive is improving efficiency in the health system through digitization of hospitals and medical records, digital renewal of national health insurance, delivery of medical supplies to rural communities through drones, among others.
Security and Education
The provision of thousands of CCTV's to the Ghana Police Service, with three networked national command centers in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale, is another digital intervention, which Dr. Bawumia listed as improving safety of citizens.
Finally in the education sector, the Vice President stressed on how the government has provided free WiFi to senior secondary schools as well as some tertiary institutions, to improve teaching and learning.
He also spoke about the provision of free special-feature laptops to all teachers on Ghana to enable digitally access text books and course outlines directly from their lap tops.
Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana
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