African Anti-corruption agencies embrace Bawumia’s call for technology use in corruption fight

Over two hundred representatives from 21 African countries who recently converged in Accra, Ghana, for the 14th Commonwealth Regional Conference of Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa have agreed on the need to rely on technology as a major tool in combating corruption and corruption-related crimes.

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who had earlier given a presentation on digitalization, its importance, and the need for a paradigm shift, posited that with the right digital tools and their appropriate use, digitalization can defeat the worst forms of public corruption, including the networks that underpin corruption networks.

“I posit to you that with the right tools and its use, we can deploy digitalization to defeat the worst forms of public corruption, including the networks that underpin them…While bribery, revenue leakage, and corrupt networks and value chains are some of the most pressing issues in the fight against corruption that threaten the future of African youth, we also have at our disposal digital technologies to identify members of corrupt networks, to account for revenues collected, to block revenue theft, as well as to track money and suspicious activity," he argued.

According to him, the deployment of digital tools have shown that with more investment and better tools, there is the possibility of eliminating the worst forms of corruption that weigh heavily on African economies.

Dr. Bawumia, who has so far successfully led the NPP government’s digitalization agenda, revealed that 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 as the government continues 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.

“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,” he disclosed.

Following his presentation, delegates in their Ten-Point Communique unanimously embraced the proposition by the Vice President for the use of technology in combating corruption in the current era.

“Member countries should scale up the use of technology to combat corruption; anti-corruption agencies should intensify corruption prevention in view of the evolving corruption landscape; and Commonwealth African governments should commit adequate resources to anti-corruption agencies to ensure the latter’s effectiveness and sustainability in fighting corruption," the communiqué said.