Business News of Tuesday, 21 May 2019
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
2019-05-21
Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia
Government has targeted migrating all state-owned institutions to cashless systems from the manual receipt of monies for services, Vice President Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has announced.
Touting some of the achievements of the Akufo-Addo administration in the implementation of technological advancements, the Vice President indicated that majority of Ghanaians have benefitted from the introduction of mobile interoperability since several people are able to transact many forms of businesses using their mobile money accounts.
“…because of mobile payments interoperability, we have set a target; today Ghanaians are able to pay their taxes using mobile money accounts, today we have also set a target that within the next 9-months we expect, at least latest by June 2020…, government will no longer receive cash for any services. We would only go cashless and electronic, that is the goal that we have set.
Because the technology now allows us to do so. You can pay for anything, if you don’t have a bank account you have a mobile money account and you can still use it…” he explained.
In his speech as the special guest of honour at the 3rd Africa Leadership Conference themed: Technology Trends vrs Consumer Choice! – Who’s determining the Future, Dr. Bawumia disclosed to patrons that revenue of the Tourism Ministry quadrupled after the cashless system was piloted in that sector. Thus, he was convinced was the litmus test of the success of the system when it is eventually introduced to the various government institutions.
“…We did a pilot in the ministry of tourism by going cashless and the revenues of that ministry increased fourfold, just one ministry, we had a fourfold increase by not accepting cash. It means that the cash was coming but going somewhere else. So we’re going to plug that loophole by going completely cashless across the board government, and the work is quite advanced in this area.
