No House Address, No Ghana Card – Akufo-Addo Announces New Order

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the newly launched National Digital Property and Addressing System will be at the core of business transactions in the country.

He noted, no Ghanaian will be issued with the new Ghana Card without a verified house and street address.

At the launch of the new addressing system in Accra Wednesday, the President announced the dawn of a new era when Ghanaians will no longer use landmarks to give directions and property locations.

The country has had issues with its addressing system after 1974 when a comprehensive address and postal system was developed.

Regimes after that toyed with the idea until former President John Kufuor government secured funding from the Danish government in 2007, to undertake street and property identification exercise.

But the exercise later suffered after a new government was ushered in after the 2008 general elections.

President Akufo-Addo believes the past regime failed to implement the project because of the lack of technical capacity, investment and political will.

Fulfilling yet another campaign promise, the President said the Ghanaian economy is on its way to being formalised with the new address system.

“The informal nature of our economy has been a major constraint to our development, affected our ability to broaden the tax base and widen financial inclusion,” he said.

He said with the instant validation and verification that comes with the new address system, businesses will not just be viable but sustainable.

The National Digital Property and Addressing System is one of the three initiatives government has outlined to complete the formalisation of the economy.

The first one was the Ghana Card which was launched last month to capture the data of all Ghanaians both resident in the country and abroad. The registration is expected to commence in November, 2017.

The last initiative is the interoperability system, which is expected to enable customers to transfer money easily across various networks.

President Akufo-Addo said the system will be launched next month.

By: Myjoyonline.com