National digital address system due in July

Ghana can by July this year boast of a national digital address system that will boost the Ghanaian economy and turn it into a formalised one.

According to the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who made the disclosure, “work on the address system is currently ongoing ; it is not just an idea we are throwing about or policy in our manifesto; our target is that by July this year we can outdoor our national digital address system.

Speaking at the maiden National Policy Summit on Monday, Dr Bawumia stressed that the role of an address system in Ghana was mostly underestimated, but had the potential to be a key component for the growth of the economy.

“That is also a very key element of a modernised economy and a formal economy, so that we can find every address in Ghana and we have started work on it. This is not just an idea or policy that was put in our manifesto. We have started work on it and our target is that by July, we want to have done this and by July this year 2017] we should outdoor the national system.”

In February this year, the Vice President announced the formation of two committees; a legal committee and technical committee, to undertake the necessary legal, logistical and financial consultation to design a roadmap for implementation.

Municipal Metropolitan and District Assemblies and other state agencies like the Ghana Water Company, Lands Commission and Ghana Post all have different systems for tracking and identifying properties, hinged on different technologies.

But the Akufo-Addo government expressed intent to implement a digital addressing system and to harmonise all such systems into a single data resource to aid national planning and economic development.

1974 marked the last time Ghana was comprehensively mapped, according to officials of the Lands Commission, despite the fact such mapping is supposed to be undertaken every five years.

The Land Administration Project (LAP), which began in 2003, has been able to map only 10 per cent of Ghana’s landmass.