Bawumia to run Africa’s first blockchain-powered government

Vice-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says the next stage of Ghana’s digitalization journey is to become the first blockchain-powered government in Africa to fight corruption.

With the increasing infusion of digitalization into the provision of Government services and everyday life, adopting blockchain is the highest levels of data security in the provision of such services.

The Blockchain technology is capable of identifying and discovering any changes in digital data to trace all transactions in the governance space.

Dr. Bawumia highlighted the pivotal role of blockchain technology in ensuring transparency and accountability in government operations.

“We are going to adopt blockchain technology for government to ensure that all data and transactions in the Government space are transparent and tamper-proof, no one can change them, and so ours could well become the first blockchain-powered government in Africa,” he assured.

Vice-President Dr. Bawumia announced this in Accra at the 14th Regional Conference and Annual General Meeting of Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Commonwealth Africa.

The week-long conference is on the theme: “Strengthening Institutions and Promoting Transparency: A Means of Fighting Corruption in Commonwealth Africa”.

It attracted 20 Commonwealth African countries to deliberate on ways to make corruption unattractive on the continent and promote wealth creation.

Dr. Bawumia gave the indication of a brighter, safer digital future for Ghana by highlighting some of the digital initiatives the Government had implemented since 2017, which were yielding immense benefits for the nation.

He disclosed that about 99% of all government agencies (1,507 out of 1517) have been onboarded onto the Government digital platform Ghana.gov, with the remaining 1% set to be completed by the end of the

The one-stop platform for paying public services electronically enabled the government to collect GH₵201 billion since 2020, was worth mentioning, he said.

With the digitalisation of passport application, he said applications increased from 347,000 to 752,000 recorded by the Passport Office while its revenues jumped from GH₵12 million to GH₵94 million between 2018 and 2023.

Additionally, the integration of the public sector databases through the use of GhanaCard enabled the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to expunge 29,000 ‘ghost’ pensioners from the public sector payroll and saving the nation GH₵480 million annually.

Dr Bawumia said the use of unique identity card (GhanaCard) enabled the Government to detect 44,707 ghost names on the National Service Scheme payroll and saved the nation GHc356 million.

“For Ghana, our next stage of the digitalization journey is to complete the integration of our databases through the X-Road Integration infrastructure as done in other countries such as Estonia.

“We will then apply blockchain technology to all of government, for the rapid and immutable identification of modifications in digital data and intelligent devices.

“We are moving towards blockchain because technology because blockchain technology makes it possible to discover any and all changes made to digital data, no matter how small, no matter by whom, we will find it immediately.

“So the blockchain practically blocks corruption, and this is where we are headed to, so that you can track and trace all transactions across the Government space and this is a very very effective tool.

“Our goal is to make Ghana the first blockchain-powered Government in Africa and one of the few in the world. We believe we can be the first in Africa to do so” he declared.

Vice-President Dr Bawumia bemoaned the devastating effect of corruption on Africa, with experts estimating that the continent has lost at $1 trillion over the past five years through corruption and illicit financial flows, while a significant percentage of persons of people who have contact with a public official will pay a bribe or will be asked to.

“Corruption is costing us a huge amount of money and depriving us of the lives we deserve”, he noted, and called for more investment into the acquisition of digital tools to fight the corruption eco-system as a whole.

While noting the huge strides made in Ghana’s fight against corruption, including the issuance of a unique identity card and address for all Ghanaians and resident foreigners in Ghana, Vice-President Dr Bawumia called on African governments to make a deliberate effort to holistically invest in acquiring the necessary tools to fight crime and cross-border corruption.

He entreated Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa to invest in digital forensics and tools to assist them to track trace and distract the corruption value chain.

The anti-graft institutions in Africa must also acquire Customised Security Operation Centres 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 the eCedi.

“The eCedi will be our ultimate weapon in our fight against corruption because it will make it easy to track the movements of money and identify suspicious activities,” he said.

It would also enable the Bank of Ghana to ensure high-level transparency, reduce the risk of fraud, tax avoidance and money laundering.

“In Ghana, by digitalizing the processes for accessing public services and reducing to the barest minimum the human interface along the chain, we can and we are reducing the opportunities to demand for and collect bribes in the public sector.

“Again by digitalizing payments for public services, we can and we are reducing the incidence of revenue leakages.

“And finally by rolling out appropriate digital platforms and systems we can and we are beginning to disrupt the networks working in concert to facilitate acts of and distribute the proceeds of corruption.

“My charge to us all is to leverage all these to track, and trace and disrupt the entire corruption value chain and to give our continent a fighting chance against poverty and under-development.

It is my hope that together, we will continue to defeat corruption in Africa in all its forms.”