Vice President’s declaration that government’s successful digitalisation drive is not only ensuring efficient delivery of public services, it is also contributing significantly to the fight against corruption in the public sector is one of the leading stories in the Ghanaian press on Tuesday.
The Graphic reports that Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says government’s successful digitalisation drive is not only ensuring efficient delivery of public services, it is also contributing significantly to the fight against corruption in the public sector.
During his State of the Economy lecture last week at the National TESCON Conference, Dr. Bawumia noted that one of the reasons for embarking on a vigorous digitalisation drive is to reduce human contact in public service delivery in order to considerably minimise the risk of bribery and corruption in the system.
“Our approach to improving the delivery of public services is to minimise human contact as much as possible. Therefore, we embarked on an aggressive digitalisation of the processes of service delivery across many public institutions with coordination from my office,” Dr. Bawumia said.
The digitalisation process, Dr. Bawumia noted, has made a significant impact on efficient public service delivery, boosted revenue and is also helping in the fight against corruption in many sectors.
The Vice President provided detailed accounts, with figures, to prove how the minimised human contact through digitalisation, has reduced corruption and significantly boosted government’s revenue mobilisation at the DVLA, ports, passport office, motor insurance, etc.
At the passport office for instance, Dr. Bawumia revealed that digitalisation of the passport application process has resulted in less human contact and a major increase in the number of passports processed annually as well as the revenue yield to the passport office.
In 2017 the passport office processed a total of 16,232 applications with revenue of GH¢1.1m. In 2021, the passport office received and processed 498,963 online passport applications with a total revenue of GH¢56.7m.”
The newspapers says that the Ghana Exports Promotion Authority (GEPA) has started engaging some airlines to find affordable and reliable air cargo services for Ghanaian horticultural produce exports to the international markets.
So far, it has engaged four carriers, including Ethiopia Airlines, Kenya Airlines, Viewtag Brinkle Airspace and Alternative Astra Airlines.
The four airlines are proposing to freight the produce at $3 per kilo on a direct flight (seven hours) to the buyer.
Exporters of Ghanaian horticultural produce, mostly fruits and vegetables, have been facing the risk of losing their buyers to competitors worldwide.
This follows the inability of the exporters to secure affordable and reliable air cargo services to freight their produce to buyers in Europe and other international markets.
The exporters explain that British Airways (BA), a seven-hour direct flight which used to lift their produce, has, since the COVID-19 pandemic, been focusing on passengers, not fresh produce.
KLM, which is the alternative, also carts the produce at a rate of $1.70 per kilo to the United Kingdom (UK) but delivers to the market between two and three days.
The exporters have expressed fear that if the absence of a dedicated airline continues, it could derail the country’s target of growing non-traditional export (NTE) proceeds from $2.8 billion in 2020 to $25.3 billion in 2029 under the National Export Development Strategy (NEDS).
Data sourced from the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) show that the country exported fruits up to 186,001.36 tonnes in 2021 and vegetables up to 2.1 million tonnes in the same period.
The Ghanaian Times reports that the performance of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) improved marginally in the month of March underpinned by rising investor confidence in the Accra bourse.
The Accra bourse recorded a marginal improvement over last month’s performance closing the month of March with a return of -1.67 per cent for the Composite Index.
A summary of March 2022 market activities on the GSE copied to the Ghanaian Times, said the performance of the Financial Stocks (GSE Financial Stock Index) was positive closing the month with a return of 1.07 per cent.
GSE Financial Stock Index measures the stock market and helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance.
It said the improvement in the GSE Financial Stock Index was occasioned by gains in SIC which close the month with gains of 46.67 per cent, ETI 30.77 per cent, GBL 6.13 per cent, TBL 5.26 per cent and Access 4.50 per cent.
“Investor confidence picked up due to strong earnings reported by listed companies. This lead to increased activity on the market, recording 2,256 transactions,” the GSE said.
On the equities market, the statement saidthe “volume and value traded were 214,969,699 and GH¢237, 136,420.10, both up 272.59 per cent and 389.35 per cent on volumes and values traded same period last year. The volume and value traded were the highest monthly trade since August 2019.”
“Cumulative volume of 280, 0656,909of shares valued at GH¢301,850,420.10 traded for the year represent an increase of 39.68 per cent and 96.77 per cent over the same period last year,” it said.
The newspaper says that the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu-Bio, has urged the Lands Commission to collaborate and work effectively with traditional Authorities in order to mitigateperennial land disputes in the country.
He explained that although government has been clothed with the powers to keep in trust the natural resource -(land) of the country, traditional authorities are real owners of the land per our customs and traditions.
MrOwusu-Bio said this when he performed the official ceremony to inaugurate the Bono East Regional office of the Lands Commission on Friday.
The Deputy Minister noted the importance of the services rendered by the Commission to the people which, among other things, include survey and mapping, valuation of property, land management and registration.
He said the functions of the commission was to register deeds and instruments that affect land, establish standards for and regulate survey and mapping services among others.
The new Regional office, he said, had come to resolve the difficulties the people in that part of the country go through to register their lands.
He called on the staff of the commission to render dedicated services to their clients.
The Bono East Regional Minister, KwasiAduGyan, in a speech read on his behalf said the official opening of the Regional Lands Commission office will bring land administration closer to the people and drive inclusive development in line with the rationale behind the creation of the region.
GIK/APA