Spokesperson for the Vice President, Dr. Gideon Boako, has stated that government’s digitization and digitalization agenda is a demonstration of the needed interest and commitment to create a modern Ghanaian economy that competes favourably globally and conforms to the dictates of the fourth industrial revolution.
According to him, the development paradigm of moving from the industrial age into the technology and information age has its own transition terms such as e-commerce, e-marketing, e-business and e-money among many others.
E-governance in the public sector, he said, will therefore not be left behind.
He stressed in nearly five years, the Akufo-Addo-led government has been pursuing the digitization and digitalization agenda by using ICT as a tool to achieve better governance.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Friday 5th November, 2021, Mr Boako observed that for many post-colonial societies like Ghana that appears stacked in the old antiquated ways of doing things, technological innovations and digitization are just what are needed to leapfrog years of public administration reforms that have almost become a never-ending business, in some cases even more bureaucratic, more red-tape, more opaque and impediments to doing business.
He averred that the Public Lecture delivered by the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia on the digital economy at Ashesi University has generated a reawakening on the potentials of digitalization and digitization for economic development.
According to him, the deployment of digital technologies can help reduce the cost of goods and services if the price build-ups of goods that occur through exchange rate exposures are understood.
He noted that a country with an increasingly depreciating currency has a higher import cost that is passed on to prices of goods on the market and stressed that one means by which the currencies of countries become exposed is rising debt levels.
The government, he said, is using digital solutions to increase the tax net through the national ID card system, and indicated replacement of the numbers with the GRA Tax Identification number automatically raises the number of Ghanaians with tax numbers from 4% to 86%.
He said, “This has broadened the tax base and made it possible for many Ghanaians to be identified as potential taxpayers.”
“We have moved a step forward following the Vice President’s challenge to GRA to make the processes of filing taxes easier and simple to be done using a mobile application device.”
“So we see the direct impact of the digitization agenda on the potential for Ghana to mobilize more revenues domestically without overburdening the taxpayer. We also see how doing this could potentially cut down on our debt levels and consequently help us to attain a relatively stable currency and reduce the rate of inflation,” he added.
The concept of digital technologies, he said, has also come with virtual means of trade and using digital technology for advertising thereby creating new jobs in many different sectors.
Mr. Boako noted it has taken political will on the part of the Government to put these new systems in place and stressed the infrastructure that has been put in place for digitalization is soft infrastructure and not like a road or a bridge that are physical.
This system, he said, is however a powerful tool and an expanded highway for development.
Source: Mypublisher24.com