Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has warned that Ghanaians will not have an economy to speak of in the near future “if we do not digitalise”.
Digitalisation is therefore here to stay, and the Ghanaian economy can only get more digitalised not less, the Vice President assured during a keynote speech at a recent conference organised by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) themed ‘Elevating Impact in a Digitalised Economy’.
“As a government, we are championing the move toward a fully digitalised economy and there is no going back to the manual and inefficient ways of doing things,” he stated.
A paradigm shift in economic transformation
According to Dr. Bawumia, the Akufo-Addo administration has since assuming the mantle of governance made tremendous progress in building the country’s digital infrastructure, which serves as the bedrock for “our digitalised economy as part of the paradigm shift in our economic transformation.
“We approached the building of this digital infrastructure on the key pillars of standardising individual identification using the Ghana Card; solving the address and property systems using GhanaPostGPS; solving under-banking and bringing financial inclusion to most people through a robust mobile money and bank interoperability and digital payment platform; and integration of government databases and digitising public service delivery using the Ghana.gov platform,” he stated.
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For him, the impacts of government’s initiatives include efficient public service delivery by all Ministries, Departments and Agencies on the Ghana.gov portal; combatting corruption by removing the middle-man and ‘ghost names’ in many transactions; bringing more Ghanaians into the formal sector; and driving domestic revenue mobilisation, among others.
Internal Auditors must embrace digitalisation
Describing the role of Internal Auditors in fighting corruption in Ghanaian society as crucial to the country’s economic recovery post the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown; the Vice President said to provide independent assurance that public sector institutions’ risk management, governance and internal control processes are operating effectively depends, first and foremost, on their embracing and adoption of digital technology. “It is critical for those responsible for governance to embrace digitalisation for survival and growth,” he said.
“In tune with the Institute of Internal Auditors’ mission, the internal audit function must be well-positioned to help organisations accomplish their objectives by providing insight and foresight. This must be achieved by adopting the systematic disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control and governance,” he added.
Rebranding to elevate impact
Also speaking at the conference, President of IIA Ghana, Harriet Akua Karikari, said the institute is progressing, changing and evolving; hence the need to rebrand.
“The branding is to change the way we present the institute visually. The new look provides a fresh, clean and confident feel without sacrificing any of our rich tradition,” she explained.
She added that the Institute’s strategic plan was developed to raise the internal audit profession’s stature, improve the quality of the profession’s visibility, and ensure growth of the Institute.
