Ghana's Bawumia leads digitization footprint that Kenya and Africa can emulate

Ghana Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia during a sit down with The Standard. [File, Standard]

You are a renowned global economist and have headed Ghana's Central Bank. President Ruto ran his election on the promise of a bottom-up economic model, what's your take on it?

The Bottom-up economic model is a model of inclusiveness which is fundamentally a good model. What we have seen in Africa since independence is that we have had development without inclusion. What we have seen is that 60 years after independence many people do not have a bank account, access to electricity, so many mothers die giving birth because they do not have access, and so on. So many people are excluded from the economic system, so if you are trying to transform an economy you cannot transform an economy on exclusion because a substantial population are amongst those excluded. The idea that President Ruto has of the bottom-up model is a good one, and I think is one that many other African countries should emulate if they are not doing so.

As the Vice President of Ghana, you have been at the forefront of spearheading digitization, what has its effect been on the economy?

In Ghana, we have really focused on pursuing digitization as an economic strategy. When you look at the world, we are now in the fourth industrial revolution globally which is a digital revolution. It is a revolution that is based on data, and systems. If you are an economy in this world and you don't digitize you are going to be left behind. Africa has been left behind for too many of these periods, and I believe that digitization is a key to leapfrogging. We digitalize not for its own sake but to solve problems, formalize and build a more inclusive economy, deal with corruption and to provide services to our people more efficiently from the government side. A lot of people were excluded from the economy so we did digital IDs for our people, so we have unique identities for everybody. Once you have unique identities for everyone you will not have ghost workers on the payroll and also sort the voter registry.

We had an issue with the address system in Ghana, and through digitization, we solved the problem. Every part of the country, land or water, mansion or shark you have a unique digital address that we have rolled out in the country. This has solved a big problem as now deliveries can easily be made through e-commerce, and in the instance you are applying for a job you can easily state your address.

On financial inclusion, we have implemented mobile money interoperability. It is not just operability between the mobile companies, but interoperability between the mobile wallet and a bank account which means that every mobile money account practicably has a bank account. We were the first country in Africa to do so. Today it is very easy for someone to open a bank account in Ghana, you have your national ID card, you get onto your mobile phone and then dial a USSD Code and you chose one of the banks and there you go, you have a bank account. We have integrated all our databases which enables us to get value out of our digitization process. Digitization is the way to go for other African countries and with it, we can leapfrog other advanced countries. Today in Ghana, we are the largest medical drone delivery service in the world. We have drones flying all over the country, today we have 100 flights a day delivering medicine.

You have been fronted as a front runner in Ghana's next election in 2024, what is your take on it?

Right now I am focused on helping my boss President Nana Akufo-Addo fulfill his vision and delivery of his agenda. We have no time to think about that right now until we get to 2024.

What is your message to President Ruto?

I congratulate him on his victory and inauguration. I want to wish him very well, this is a major task and a major burden but God will see him through. He is a very smart man, he has been a deputy president for a while and he knows what to do. We are praying for him and wishing him the very best and we are looking forward to what he does for Kenya.