Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
VICE PRESIDENT Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has been named among the 100 most influential people on the African continent.
The exclusive list of transformational African leaders was drawn by revered Pan African publication, the New African Magazine, which seeks to recognise, acknowledge and honour a rare breed of transformational African leaders, whose works are truly transforming lives and making telling impacts on their respective countries and the African continent.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was selected in the category of influential leaders, along with Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Mackey Sall of Senegal and William Ruto of Kenya. Others are AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina, Afriexim Bank President Professor Benedict Oramah, among others.
Dr. Bawumia was recognised for his relentless efforts at spearheading Ghana’s digitisation as a core economic strategy to solve socio-economic problems.
Tribute
Naming Dr. Bawumia as one of Africa’s most influential leaders, the publication eulogised the Vice President for his transformational leadership, noting that his reforms are setting “unique precedents on the African continent.”
“The Oxford-trained economist, former Deputy Governor of Ghana’s Central Bank and Vice President of the Republic of Ghana since 2017, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is spearheading Ghana’s digitisation as a core economic strategy to solve socio-economic problems, formalise and build a more inclusive economy, deal with corruption and to provide social services more effectively,” wrote the magazine.
“His reforms are setting a unique precedent on the continent. His digitisation agenda has resulted in the implementation and adoption of a National Identification System, a Digital Property Addressing System and a Mobile Money Interoperability System. This is enabling a new set of opportunities for the consumer including mobile wallets and greater financial inclusion.”
“Bawumia sees technology as the key to transforming the economy and delivering essential services,” the publication added.
Dr. Bawumia was also commended by the magazine for initiating Ghana’s recent oil for gold barter initiative, which seeks to pay for imported oil with Ghana’s gold, rather paying with its reserved US Dollars – a smart move to curb the depreciation of the Cedi, as well as control the rising cost of fuel in the country.
Digitisation Initiatives
With the transformational policies Dr. Bawumia has championed, Ghana has achieved the following: successfully issued digital national identity cards to Ghanaian nationals and residents, become the first African country to adopt a national digital property address system, become the first African country to implement mobile money interoperability between mobile money accounts and bank accounts, been ranked number one in terms of access to financial inclusion in Africa, become the first country in Africa to implement a universal QR Code payment system, and Ghana has also become the first country in the world where banks have issued their own mobile money wallets known as GhanaPay.
Through his digitisation initiatives, Ghana has also become the world’s largest provider of medical delivery services using Zipline drones to deliver medical supplies to remote parts of the country in real time.
Ghana has also become the first country in Africa to implement a national scale E-Pharmacy digital platform, and the country has also digitised the provision of government services using a common digital portal (Ghana.gov), as well as a common digital platform for property taxation in Ghana – all contributing immensely to revenue mobilisation.
New Africa Magazine’s latest honour, adds to the growing list of international acknowledgements of Dr. Bawumia, for his starring role in Ghana’s acclaimed digitisation drive.
Recently, the UNDP, through its country representative, Angela Rusigi, described Dr. Bawumia as a “champion of digitisation”, adding that his efforts have contributed to “inclusive and accelerated development.”