The Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has been honoured among the 100 most influential people in the African continent.
The list of Transformational African Leaders, was drawn by the Pan African Publication, the New African Magazine.
The magazine seeks to recognise, acknowledge and honour a rare breed of transformational African leaders, whose impact are truly live-transforming and making impacts on their respective countries on the African continent.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was categorized under influential Leaders, with the likes of Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Mackey Sall of Senegal and William Ruto of Kenya.
African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina, Afriexim Bank President Professor Benedict Oramah, among others also were honoured by the paper.
Dr. Bawumia according to the magazine was revered on the merits of his relentless efforts at spearheading Ghana’s digitization as a core economic strategy to solve socio-economic problems.
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Bawumia was named one of Africa’s most influential leaders as the publication praised his transformational leadership; and noted his reforms are setting “unique precedents on the African continent.”
“The leader of Ghana’s economic management team, the former Deputy Governor of Ghana’s Central Bank and Vice President of the Republic of Ghana since 2017, has spearheaded the country’s digitisation as a core economic strategy to solve socio-economic problems, formalise and build a more inclusive economy, deal with corruption and to provide social services more effectively,” The magazine acknowledged.
It continued, “His reforms are setting a unique precedent on the continent. His digitisation agenda has resulted in the implementation and adoption of a National Identification System, a Digital Property Addressing System and a Mobile Money Interoperability System.
“This is enabling a new set of opportunities for the consumer including mobile wallets and greater financial inclusion.
“Bawumia sees technology as the key to transforming the economy and delivering essential services.”
He was lauded also for initiating Ghana’s recent oil for gold barter move, that seeks to pay for imported oil with Ghana’s gold, rather paying with its reserved US Dollars.
It indicated it was a smart move to curb the depreciation of the Cedi, as well as control the rising cost of fuel in the country.
Digitalisation Impact
With his transformational policies Dr. Bawumia has led Ghana to achieve the Digital National Identity Cards to Ghanaian nationals and residents.
His initiative makes Ghana the first among other African country to adopt a national digital property address system, become the first African country to implement mobile money interoperability between mobile money accounts and bank accounts, been ranked number one in terms of access to financial inclusion in Africa, become the first country in Africa to implement a universal QR Code payment system and Ghana has also become the first country in the world where banks have issued their own mobile money wallets known as GhanaPay.
By the digitisation initiatives, Ghana has also become the world’s largest provider of medical delivery services using Zipline drones to deliver medical supplies to remote parts of the country in real time.
Ghana becomes the first country in Africa to implement a national scale E-Pharmacy digital platform, and the country has also figitized the provision of government services using a common digital portal (Ghana.gov), as well as a common digital platform for property taxation in Ghana – all contributing immensely to revenue mobilization.
New Africa Magazine’s latest honour, is just one of the growing lists of international acknowledgement of Dr Bawumia, for his enviable role in Ghana’s acclaimed digitisation drive.
In recently times, the UNDP, through its country rep, Angela Rusigi, described Dr. Bawumia as a “champion of digitisation.”
It added his efforts have contributed to ‘inclusive and accelerated development.
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