The government is in talks with Google LLC, an American multinational technology company that specialises in internet-related services and products such as online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware, to upload the country’s database on its platform.
The uploading will also include the Digital Property Addressing System and the National Identification database.
The two will be synchronised to enable citizens to easily access government services and also help fight crime in the country.
These were made known by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia when he inspected the embossment of digital property address plates on houses at certain parts of the Adentan Municipality in the Greater Accra Region yesterday.
He was accompanied by the Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Decentralisation, Daniel Kwaku Botwe; Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Adentan, Daniel Alexander Nii-Noi Adumuah and the Deputy Director of Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority (LUSPA), Chapman Owusu Sekyere.
Dr. Bawumia revealed that so far 7.5 million unique digital property addresses have been identified by the Land Use and Spatial Panning Authority (LUSPA) while four million address plates had been printed for embossment on properties across the country.
The unique digital address plate has the house number, street name, Ghana Post digital address and QR Code for every particular house or property to facilitate easy tracing and identification of the property owner.
The Vice President said the new digital property address plates were an upgraded version of the old ones.
He said 3.5 million more properties are expected to be embossed in the second phase.
The exercise is expected to be completed next year.
The Vice President indicated that new properties that would spring up in the future could secure the address plates for embossment on their properties from LUSPA at no cost.
Vice President Bawumia said, “The government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is trying to solve a major problem in this country and that is address issue.
“There are so many properties and houses that do not have an address and that problem hampers development.
“If you do not have an address, how do you get an ambulance to come to your house? How do you get Fire Service to come to your house? How do you get the Police if for example there is robbery taking place in your house? If you apply for a loan from the bank or order goods on the internet, how do you provide an address to deliver the items to your house?
“As government, we want to leverage on the existing Digital Property Address System to provide unique addresses to every house or property to improve delivery of government services.”
Dr. Bawumia asked Ghanaians to cooperate with officials from the implementing agencies who would visit their homes to emboss the address plates, in order to ensure a successful exercise.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent