The Regional Director of CUTS International, Appiah Adu Adomako, has disclosed that the newly launched Ghana.gov platform will likely address revenue leakages.

According to him, it is a laudable initiative by government although others are yet to fully latch on to digitized payment.

This, he explained, should be areas government should focus on to address the issue of leakages.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction because getting your money electronically will help government have access quicker than what it used to be in the past. Also, the issue of leakages and pilfering of government funds are also likely to go down. So, I think it’s something that we should government a pat on the back.

“But I think there’s more that we have to do, the fact that we have this platform does not necessarily mean that all the institutions will abide by this thing. Some might still want to have a system whereby the platform is there but they are still trying to collect money through the other means. That is where the leakages can also be going through”.

Implementing laws against offenders

Responding to other call for a parallel centralized payment system, he urged government to ensure that the public abides by the new directive.

“I think that we should make payment systems very flexible for people. So, that is why when you go to most institutions they accepts these MasterCard, momo… they all converge on the same platform. But are we going to allow people to still collect money when they can make payments electronically?

“For example though government is going through the E-procurement, some institutions would not want to do the E-procurement because it may not inure to their advantage. So, the law should be very clear and the punishment should always be [enforced] on people who want to circumvent the process”.

The Minister of Finance Ken Ofori-Atta, during the launch noted that, the platform has already processed over GHS20 billion during its pilot phase.

“The Ghana.gov platform was piloted from June to December 2020 and a total of 624,000 persons have registered and over 5.8 million transactions have taken place with a total value of GHS20.2 billion”.

Common Monitoring Platform

President Akufo-Addo in June this year, stressed on the need for a Common Monitoring Platform. According to him, this will monitor communication traffic and provides real-time verification of transactions in the telecommunications sector.

This, he noted has been established as a measure of transparency and accountability. By this, it will build trust and improve the working relationship between government and players in the industry.

“Government is committed to ensuring efficiency in the delivery of public services, and has rolled out e-government services, including the introduction of paperless port operations, e-procurement, e-parliament, e-justice, e-registrar, and the use of the smart workplace virtual office application, amongst other initiatives”.

President Akufo-Addo further intimated that an electronic platform such as ghana.gov.gh platform will promote efficiency and transparency in revenue collection and improve upon the security of transactions in the public sector.