The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has hinted that Government will affix the address plates for every property in Ghana by the end of 2022.
According to him, “it is a superior address system and leapfrogs the addressing systems that have been implemented and in use in many advanced countries”.
The Vice President who was speaking at the Ashesi University on the Transforming the Economy through Digitalization: the Ghana Story, indicated that through the Property Digitalization process, the Government has identified and provided unique addresses for all properties in Ghana of 7.5 million.
He explained that “to solve the problem of a lack of working address system in the country we have leveraged on GPS technology to implement a digital address system for Ghana capturing every square inch of land”.
Dr. Bawumia noted that the Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA) has also provided street names and house numbers for every street, adding that, Ghana is the first country in Africa to implement a digital system in combination with house numbers and street names.
Outlining the process to digital property address system, he said every Ghanaian who has a digital address, can provide such an address for job applications, visa applications, applications for passports, etc.
Also, the Ghana Post GPS application comes with directions to every location adding that currently, Ghana Post is achieving 98% delivery rates as they can identify every location using the digital address navigation system.
Dr. Bawumia further explained that “now Ghana Post delivers for several e-commerce companies like Jumia and majority of shipments sent to Ghana via Alibaba and Amazon are delivered through Ghana Post. Ghana Post provides banks with data such as customers’ GPS address”.
Additionally, the Ghanacard captures the digital address of the holder, as well as the Ambulances and Police, can easily find locations to accidents and crime scenes.
He said given the popularity of WhatsApp amongst people in finding and sharing locations, the government has engaged Google last year and they have agreed to integrate our digital address system (house number, street names, and digital address) into Google Maps.
“We are hoping to complete the integration by the end of the year. This will be the first such integration of a country’s digital property address system into Google maps that I am aware of”.
The digital address system he said was executed by Ghanapost in collaboration with Vodacom, a leading Ghanaian IT firm.
BY Daniel Bampoe