Professor Godfred Bokpin, a professor of finance and economics at the University of Ghana has said that Ghana has been late in the digitalisation drive.
Prof. Bokpin, speaking on Joy FM programme, NewsFile on Saturday, explained that while it was a laudable idea by the government, and spearheaded by the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Ghana’s timing was a little late.
“This is a laudable move and I share in the perspective that it is long overdue. In fact, others have gone far ahead of us and we are more or less at the basis of digital transformation, “he said.
“I think there is huge potential from the steps that we are taking if we also take time to address the technical issues underlining the procurement issue, the transparency issue and all of that, then we’ll be able to translate the hypothesis, as someone will say, from theory into actual,” he said.
Dr Bawumia recently delivered a lecture at the Ashesi University dubbed ‘Bawumia Speaks’, and themed ‘Transforming An Economy Through Digitalisation: The Ghana Story where he justified the government’s unending focus on the digitalisation of the Ghanaian economy saying the benefits of such an agenda were in the interest of the country.
According to him, the previous systems of going about business transactions without technology had been disadvantageous.
“This analogue system frustrates, other than helping ordinary people. Why is it that after 60 years of independence of this country, the system remained basically the same or in some cases worsened? The goal upon assumption of office was to quickly transform our economy by leveraging on the technology advancement as means to leapfrog the advancement and developmental process that comes with the legacy problems of both economic and public sector governance. This is why digitalisation has been a major focus of the government”, Dr Bawumia said.
He added that challenging the status quo had been misconstrued to mean a deviation of the government’s primary aim of revamping the ailing Ghanaian economy.
The Vice President maintained that digitalising the economy would rather yield a more positive result.
“Unfortunately, many people do not appreciate the link between digitisation and economic development. I have heard people say I am abandoning economics for digitisation. Far from abandoning economics, the reality is that in this era, if you don’t digitise you will not have much of an economy, period! Indeed, digital policy is economic policy,” he said.
