by Delali Adogla-Bessa
The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has indicated that the national digital address system will be rolled out by July 2017.
In his announcement at the 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 2017, Dr. Bawumia 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% of Ghana’s landmass.
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