Senior Lecturer at the School of Technology at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Dr Samuel Tweneboah-Koduah, has lamented the country's level of digitalising the economy.

Speaking on Newsfile on Joy News on Saturday, he noted that Ghana is lagging in digitalising its economy.

He was responding to the Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia's assertion of a digitalised economy.

"Let me first say that we are far behind this. I must also say that I am an academic and researcher, and so I speak from an academic perspective we don't criticise; we critique…So I must say that in perspective of this, we are far behind time.

"Digitalisation from what our Vice-President has said is more of automation, and if you look at technology transformation, that is far behind," he said.

According to him, government is only engaging in automation and not digitalising the economy.

Comparing Ghana to other countries which have digitalised their economic system, Dr Tweneboah-Koduah said the country has not enlarged its digitalisation infrastructure enough.

"Countries that have developed have gone beyond automation to artificial intelligence. So you are not only developing applications as in this case but going beyond exporting intelligence knowledge; that is where income is generated.

"Sadly, we have these applications which are pretty good, the terminology of digitisation and technology infrastructure is a bit problematic here. Most of the things they have listed in the report, I have listed all of them about 17. So I can say that they are all technology applications and not infrastructure.

"Cyberinfrastructure goes beyond the application that I have listed here. Of course, we are far behind time, but they say a journey of thousand miles starts with a step, so it's a nice move, but I think we are far behind," he explained.

But Spokesperson to the Vice President, Dr Gideon Boako, said government's digitisation agenda so far has increased the volumes of trade and created more jobs in the country.

"It is so open that because of the digitalisation agenda we are doing, the mobile money interoperability, today look at the volumes of trade that take place on Instagram and Facebook. People are able to have their products advertised…that is what digitisation and technology is doing for us," he said.

Meanwhile, the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, on November 2, 2021, delivered a public lecture on Ghana's digital economy and how the government has used digitisation to achieve many milestones by addressing some social and economic issues.

During the lecture, Dr Bawumia, who has spearheaded the government's digitalisation drive, explained the government's vision, the measures undertaken so far, and the impact of digitalisation on the general Ghanaian economy and service delivery by government and the private sector.