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Former Member of Parliament for Manhyia North, Collins Owusu Amankwa has called on the Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful to sensitize Ghanaians on Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia's public lecture on digitization.

The Vice President delivered the lecture at the Ashesi University where he revealed government's plans and strides in digitizing the economy.

He outlined a number of digital interventions of the government emphasizing areas like biometric national ID card, property address system, mobile money interoperability, e-pharmacy, e-passport among others.

Public Lecture 

On health, Dr. Bawumia spoke extensively on how the government is using technology to improve the health system, hence highlighting the digitization of hospitals and medical records, digital renewal of national health insurance, delivery of medical supplies to rural communities through drones, among others.

On mobile money interoperability, he said; ''Thanks to the Bank of Ghana and Ghana Interbank Payments and Settlement System (GhIPSS) the mobile money payments interoperability has made it possible to transfer money seamlessly across different mobile money providers and between bank accounts and mobile wallets.”

“It has also solved the major problem of the over 70% of people not having bank accounts. Today, because of mobile money interoperability (MMI), you can transfer money from a customer of one telco to a customer of a different telco and also make payments from your mobile money account into any bank account and you can receive payments from any bank account into your mobile money account. You can receive interest on savings, acquisition of loan (e.g. qwick loan) on your mobile wallets. As a result of MMI over 90% of the adult population now have access to a 'bank account'”, he added.

On e-passport, he stated;  ''It is not widely known that the Ghanacard is also an electronic passport (e-passport) that contains the biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of travelers. Government has been working with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) this year to globally activate the e-passport function of the Ghanacard and I am happy to announce that on 13th October 2021, Ghana officially became the 79th member of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Public Key Directory (PKD) community''.

''This means that by the end of the first quarter of 2022, the Ghanacard will be recognized globally as an e-passport and can be read and verified in all ICAO compliant borders (i.e. in 197 countries and 44,000 airports in the world). When this happens, holders of the Ghanacard will be allowed to board any flight to Ghana'', ''furthermore, the good news for diasporan Ghanaians is that when the Ghana Immigration Service is linked to the NIA architecture, diasporan Ghanaians who hold the Ghanacard should not have to obtain visas to travel to Ghana'', Dr. Bawumia emphasized.

He further addressed other areas where there is going to a digital transformation.

Education

Speaking to Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', Hon. Collins Owusu Amankwa advised the government communicators and the Communications Minister to go to the ground and educate  Ghanaians to understand the digitial language of the Vice President.

''We need ambassadors to create this awareness. The government shouldn't make it look like the Vice President has delivered a public lecture, so it stops there. No! We have to get down to the grass roots and interpret it to the people for their understanding...This time is an opportune time for us to humbly explain matters to people for them to understand what we're saying'', he said.