The Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP),  Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has revealed that the next phase of government's massive digitalization drive will be to adopt blockchain technology, which will make it impossible for government data and records to be tampered with, as government continues to fight corruption in the public sector by leveraging digital tools.

Dr Bawumia, who has so far successfully led the government's digitalisation agenda, explained that when blockchain technology is successfully implemented, Ghana's Government could be the first on the African continent to have a blockchain-powered Government.

"We are going to adopt blockchain technology for government to ensure that all data and transactions in the government space are transparent and tamper-proof.  No one can change them. And so ours could well become the first blockchain-powered government in Africa," he said in Accra yesterday [May 9, 2024] in his keynote address at the 14th Commonwealth Regional Conference and Annual General Meeting of Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa.

With only about 1.0% of government agencies yet to be put fully on the Government of Ghana digital platform, Dr Bawumia expressed optimism that all agencies will be digitalised by the end of the end for the smooth implementation of the next phase.

“For Ghana, our next stage of the digitalisation journey is to complete the integration of our databases through the X-Road Integration infrastructure as done in other countries such as Estonia. We will then apply blockchain technology to all of government, for the rapid and immutable identification of modifications in digital data and intelligent devices. We are moving towards blockchain because blockchain technology makes it possible to discover any and all changes made to digital data, no matter how small, no matter by whom, we will find it immediately".

“So the blockchain practically blocks corruption, and this is where we are headed to, so that you can track and trace all transactions across the Government space and this is a very very effective tool.Our goal is to make Ghana the first blockchain-powered Government in Africa and one of the few in the world. We believe we can be the first in Africa to do so” he added.

Government has received plaudits for the digitalisaation drive in public sector administration. Nearly all government ministries, departments and agencies operate digitally, eliminating the manual system that left enough room for corruption.