A group calling itself Coalition of National Youth Organizers has described Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia’s speech on digitalization of the economy as a launch of his presidential bid and an attempt to market himself to Ghanaians.
The group also called on the Vice President to explain to Ghanaians how the existing digital platforms have benefitted the country in terms of revenue.
According to the Group, there are a number of government E-Platforms already operational in the country so it would not be out of place if the Vice President tells users what benefits the platforms are contributing to the national economy.
“For every transfer of money from one’s bank account to their mobile money account / wallet, there is a service charge, Dr. Bawumia as the head of the economic team failed to tell us how government is taking advantage to raise revenue.
“Again it has become evident that the telecommunications Companies are now metamorphosing into banks and insurance companies through the digital platforms. We would love to know how the government is generating revenue through this opportunity,” the Group stated in response to Dr. Bawumia’s address on Digitizing Ghana.
The Vice President, speaking on the theme “TRANSFORMING AN ECONOMY THROUGH DIGITALIZATION- THE GHANA STORY” on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, at the Ashesi University, Berekuso in the Eastern Region disclosed a number of benefits in using the Ghana Card.
Among them are Ghanaians abroad to travel back home with Ghana, newborns to receive Ghana and Ghana set to become the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to have a national scale E-Pharmacy.
On this background, the Coalition of National Youth Organizers have stated why the Vice President failed in telling Ghanaians how the government is monetizing these initiatives.
Below is the full statement from the Group.
BAWUMIA’S SPEECH WAS A SELF APPRAISAL FORUM AND LAUNCH OF THE BAWUMIA FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN: COALITION OF NATIONAL YOUTH ORGANIZERS
It is such a disappointment that the much-hyped Bawumia speech, which was anticipated to give hope to the Ghanaian youth turned out to be nothing but self-praising and launch of the Vice President’s bid to succeed Nana Akuffo as the next flagbearer of the NPP.
Dr. Bawumia choose to talk and hype a book he wrote some years back which did not receive the acknowledgement he wanted, so he began his speech by relaunching his supposed book all over again.
Dr. Bawumia decided to bore us with things like the Ghana card, which was introduced by the administration of former President Kuffour, which was continued by the President Mills administration and concluded by the Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo-Addo’s government.
It is instructive to note that, most institutions like banks still refuse to accept the Ghana card as a form of identification.
It is important to note that, there has not been a former merging of the data on the Ghana card and other form of identification like the birth certificates, ATM cards among others.
Dr. Bawumia in his speech mentioned that, with the introduction of mobile money platform, it was discovered that there are 30 million Mobile accounts, this we doubt.
According to the Ghana Statistical Services, the total population of Ghana is a little over 30 million people, is Dr. Bawumia telling us that almost every Ghanaian owns a mobile phone?
Again is he telling us that, the fact that one owns a mobile phone, makes them an automatic subscriber of the mobile money service?
Dr. Bawumia spent time talking about the inter-operability platform which allows one to link their bank account to their mobile money account.
What he failed to tell us, is how the government is raising revenue through this means.
For every transfer of money from one’s bank account to their mobile money account/wallet, there is a service charge, Dr. Bawumia as the head of the economic team failed to tell us, how the government is taking advantage to raise revenue.
Again it has become evident that the telecommunications Companies are now metamorphosing into banks and insurance companies through digital platforms.
We would have love to know how the government is generating revenue through this opportunity.
Dr. Bawumia admits that digitization has come to stay. He made reference to the fact that e-commerce is taking over from the traditional way of doing business.
Again he admits that a lot of financial transactions are done online and a lot of Ghanaians are patronizing it, he, however, failed to tell us the modalities put in place to combat cybercrime and to assure Ghanaians that the cybercrimes we witness like mobile money fraud will be a thing of the past.
As the Chairman of the Police Council we were looking forward to hear from him how many Police Officers have been recruited and trained to Mann our cyberspace.
We want to remind the vice president that most of the digital addresses issued still mislead people to cocoa farms and dead-end roads as their final destination.
We were hoping that the Vice President again will tell us that, computer programming is going to be introduced in our basic schools to show his commitment to a digitised Ghana, but all we heard were the intention to distribute laptops and tablets which will have the hardcopy curriculum programmed on it.
A holistic look at the much-hyped but nothing new Bawumia speech event is nothing but a launch of his bid to become the next flagbearer of the NPP.
Signed …….✍🏽
Coalition of National Youth Organizers.
