The Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has underscored the need for Ghanaians to support the digital technology agenda by the current government.

According to him, digital technology is the country’s chance at becoming a dynamic, competitive and prosperous economy.

Speaking at the Standard Chartered Digital Banking, Innovation and Fintech Festival dubbed, “Enabling the Digital Economy for the 21st Century”, on Wednesday, the Minister said the country must work hard to get rid of all barriers to digital technology.

“Digital technology is our chance at becoming a dynamic, competitive and prosperous economy. As such, we must work together to see all the remaining barriers to accessing technology removed.

Overall, government and the private sector each have a responsibility to ensure that Ghana is equipped to succeed in the digital age,” Mr. Ofori Atta said.

Delivering the keynote address at the same event, Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia reiterated government’s commitment to building a digital economy and urged stakeholders to collaborate to promote the digitalization agenda of government.

“Collaboration will cement the ecosystem further. The digital economy thrives on information and collaboration. Banks, fintechs, telecom companies, governments, regulators and consumers should form one big bloc sharing information and feedback that loops everyone. Collaboration will provide opportunities for entities with different specializations to work together to achieve bigger goals,” the Vice-President noted.

Dr. Bawumia added that, “fundamentally, there is no inconsistency between competition and collaboration. I know that many of the stakeholders in our ecosystem, the private sector are very profit-driven. The Central Bank has to guard jealously the safety and stability of the system and strive to get financial inclusion.”

The Vice-President emphasized that the digitalization agenda would only thrive on inclusion of all stakeholders.

“If we don’t collaborate, then everybody would be in silos, but once we come together in one ecosystem, then we are able to derive economies of scale from that collaboration, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We are very focused on inclusion, and this is why it is very important, that as we build these systems, we try to bring everybody on a common platform,” he explained.