The next phase of the government’s massive digitalization drive will be to adopt blockchain technology, which will make it impossible for government data and records to be tampered with, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has announced.
He explained that this is part of efforts by the government to fight corruption in the public sector by leveraging digital tools.
He explained that when blockchain technology is successfully implemented, Ghana’s government could be the first on the African continent to have a blockchain-powered government.
Delivering the keynote address at the 14th Commonwealth Regional Conference and Annual General Meeting of Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa, he said: “We are going to adopt blockchain technology for the government to ensure that all data and transactions in the government space are transparent and tamper-proof. No one can change them. And so ours could well become the first blockchain-powered government in Africa.”
With only about 1% of government agencies yet to be fully put on the Government of Ghana digital platform, Dr. Bawumia expressed optimism that all agencies will be digitalized by the end of the year for the smooth implementation of the next phase.
“For Ghana, our next stage of the digitalization journey is to complete the integration of our databases through the X-Road Integration infrastructure as done in other countries such as Estonia. We will then apply blockchain technology to all of government for the rapid and immutable identification of modifications in digital data and intelligent devices. We are moving towards blockchain because blockchain technology makes it possible to discover any and all changes made to digital data, no matter how small or by whom, and we will find them immediately.
“So the blockchain practically blocks corruption, and this is where we are headed so that you can track and trace all transactions across the government space, and this is a very effective tool. Our goal is to make Ghana the first blockchain-powered government in Africa and one of the few in the world. We believe we can be the first in Africa to do so,” he added.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
