The ‘ghana.gov.gh’ platform has been described as a joke by a Governance Expert who doubles as the Executive Director of the Community Development Alliance (CDA), Mr. Salifu Kanton. Mr. Kanton opined that enough work has not been done to digitise most government departments and agencies to support the centralized platform.
He explained that the centralized government platform will fail because of digital inadequacies. “In fact, that thing is a big joke. As we speak, there are Chief Directors of government ministries, agencies, and departments who are transacting official government work with personal Gmail and Yahoo addresses. Now, when we talk about an integrated digital government services platform, it has to be anchored around official government email addresses,” he explained.
Mr. Kanton recalled that government agencies and departments had been instructed to move to professional institutional email addresses but the directive had been disregarded. The Executive of CDA added that the use of personal emails leaves government agencies susceptible to leaks as they are not secure. He also explained that until such a time when all the basic technological advancements are adopted and used by the relevant agencies, a centralized digital system will fail.
He spoke to A1radio on the back of the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s lecture at Ashesi University on the agenda ‘Transforming An Economy Through Digitalisation: The Ghana Story’
Background (Ghana.gov.gh)
The ‘ghana.gov.gh’ is a digital service and revenue collection platform, created to provide a single point of access to Government of Ghana services for the public sector. The creation of the platform is in pursuit of the government’s vision of digitizing the economy and modernizing the way government pays its bills and also collects fees and charges for the benefit of all citizens, residents and visitors.
The service portal seeks to deliver; the processing of all payments and transfers (both electronic and cash) against predefined service flows of each MDA and MMDA, manage post-payment workflow, customer notification, feedback and service ratings. Thereby, enabling the Government of Ghana fulfill its goal of creating a cash-lite economy.
A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz| Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
