Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia addressing the gathering
Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia has stated that government is making efforts to make Ghana a cashless economy through the mobile payment interoperability, real-time gross settlement system, Automated Clearing House, debit and credit and instant pay, among others.
According to him, Ghana’s payment system architecture is one of the most advanced in Africa.
Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia, who made these known yesterday in Accra at the Ghana Economic Forum (GEF) emphasised: “In fact in the area of mobile payment interoperability, Ghana is the leading country in Africa; it has overtaken Kenya.”
That, he said, was because “most other countries, when they talk about mobile payment interoperability, only talk interoperability between the mobile operators, i.e. the Tigos, MTNs and Vodafones, but not interoperability with the banks and so on.”
Going forward, he said “we intend to integrate all the above payment channels to provide a platform for the receipt of all government payments electronically.”
“That phase of the project is expected to be launched sometime next year, because there has to be a common platform where anybody who wants a government service can go and pay for it whether it’s your driver’s licence or your passport and so on.”
Considering the fact that Rwanda and other countries which are fast-developing have operationalized such platforms, the Vice President disclosed “we are going to insist with mobile payment interoperability that most governments, maybe the toll roads, will be exempt for now. But we want non-cash payment for government services because we have the architecture available to make non-cash payment for government services.”
This, according to him, would allow for more accountability, auditing and transparency.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent