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Ghana will become Africa’s first blockchain-based government
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has said that the next phase of Ghana’s digitalisation journey will be to become Africa’s first blockchain-based government to fight corruption.
Blockchain technology can identify and discover any changes in digital data to track all transactions in the governance space.
This, he believes, would promote transparency and allow the government to fight corruption in its entirety.
Vice President Bawumia announced this on Thursday at the 14th Regional Conference and Annual General Meeting of Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Commonwealth Africa, in Accra.
The week-long conference is on the theme: “Strengthening institutions and promoting transparency: a means to combat corruption in Commonwealth Africa”.
It attracted 20 African Commonwealth countries to deliberate on how to make corruption unattractive on the continent and promote wealth creation.
Dr Bawumia highlighted some of the digital initiatives that the government has implemented since 2017, which are producing immense benefits for the nation.
It is worth mentioning, for example, the ghana.gov portal, a unique platform for electronic payment of public services and which allows the government to collect GH¢201 billion since 2020.
With the digitalisation of passport acquisition processes, it said applications increased from 347,000 to 752,000 registered by the Passport Office, while its revenue increased from GH¢12 million to GH¢94 million between 2018 and 2023.
Furthermore, the integration of public sector databases through the use of GhanaCard has enabled the Audit and General Accounts Department to eliminate 29,000 “ghost” pensioners from public sector payrolls and save the nation GH480 million per year.
Dr Bawumia said the use of a unique identity card (GhanaCard) enabled the government to detect 44,707 ghost names on the National Service Scheme payroll and saved the nation GH¢356 million.
He implored anti-corruption agencies in Africa to invest in digital forensic tools that help them track, trace and disrupt the corruption value chain.
Anti-corruption institutions in Africa must also acquire customized security operations centers to enable them to fight corruption networks.
The Vice President said Ghana could fight corruption more efficiently if the Central Bank finally introduced the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), otherwise known as e-Cedi.
“The e-Cedi will be our ultimate weapon in our fight against corruption because it will make it easier to trace money movements and identify suspicious activities,” he said.
It would also allow the Bank of Ghana ensure a high level of transparency, reduce the risk of fraud, tax avoidance and money laundering.