Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has revealed that once the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) turned digital, the power distribution company saw an increase in annual revenue from 450 million cedis to 1.2 billion cedis.
Additionally, he claimed that the income mobilization of the passport office had significantly changed, going from 1 million cedis to 64 million cedis, emphasizing that this shows that government digitization efforts have lessened corruption.
Dr. Bawumia said that Ghana’s digitalization effort has significantly decreased corruption, while he spoke at the National Development Conference on the topic “Moral Vision and National Development.”
He claimed that over the previous few years, state organizations’ revenues had significantly improved, including those of ECG and the passport office. He said that this is a result of the systems’ introduction of the digitization agenda.
Dr. Bawumia pointed out that ECG had maintained a steady monthly revenue for four years, despite an increase in consumers.
“In times past, it used to be easy to lie about your age and get away with it, particularly in the government sector. At the port for instance, we have introduced the paperless system and this came with resistance. Some of the custom officers organized demonstrations against the move but we were firm on our stance. Today, at the offices of ECG, you can buy your credit without any challenges.
“The challenges with ECG initially were that the revenues of ECG were constant and the values were the same. We looked at the architecture of revenue of ECG and we changed it. They were collecting 450 million cedis a month as revenue. We sent in a team to work on their system. There were sabotage attempts, such as people sending viruses into the system to destroy our work but we were resilient and brought in a whole new architecture for ECG. Today, they make over 1 billion cedis as revenues monthly. The same happened at the passport office, which was making 1 million cedis to over 65 million cedis.”
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Holding Unto African Values Important
Former Presidents also spoke during the conference, emphasizing the necessity of preserving African ideals.
Former President Kufuor brought up ethical concerns in the society in Ghana, adding that progress can be justified in terms of its benefit regardless of tribe, religion, ideology, gender, or income. He demanded that morality be given the proper weight in the Ghanaian context.
“In the grips of technological advancement around the world, mankind seems to be losing the sense of itself and sadly of its creator, the almighty God. Thus, the word morals, which must equate with humanity, is taken for granted. A forum such as this must refocus our society and infuse and integrate morality in our search for proper development.”
J.A. Kufuor
Meanwhile, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, stressed the need to combat corruption by passing legislation that will address the problem. He stated that in addition to passing legislation, the nation’s morals, standards, and competency must also be examined.
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