Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia has described former President John Mahama as clueless, after he claimed the National Digital Property Addressing Systems is fraudulent.
Ex President Mahama addressing a teeming crowd of NDC supporters in Cape Coast on Sunday said the government must hold someone accountable for paying for a service that is available on mobile phones already through google map.
“….Otherwise, how can you launch a whopping GPS system that is freely available on our mobile phones and say it is the best national addressing system?… It’s such a pity. Why would you embarrass the president so much?” Mahama noted.
But in a response, Vice President Bawumia said he had a very good laugh when he read Mr Mahama’s reasoning for that description, adding that it was very evident to him that Mr Mahama has no clue about what he was talking about and was just engaged in parroting propaganda.
He took time to educate the former President and critics of the system, explaining that, the system is a “national database system that provides the digital address for every landed property in Ghana.”
“Basically every 5x5m property has a unique digital address on the grid with region, district and postcode. Under this system, 16.1 billion addresses have been generated for the whole of Ghana. It relies on surveyed data from Lands Commission and the Latitude and Longitudes to generate postcodes and addresses for every square inch of Ghana.”
Dr Bawumia stressed that Ghana’s system is “independent of Google and any other mapping tool” adding that “Google will not give the postcode, region or district for a particular location for example. It will not give you a register of addresses for every user. Banks for example cannot confirm an address by going to Google maps, but they can do so through the NDPAS for registered users.”
Digital Addressing system will benefit Ghanaians – Bawumia
The Vice President stated that, the 2.5 million dollar system will be beneficial to Ghanaians and cannot be compared to the millions blown by the Mahama government in the bus branding, SADA scandals and others that rocked his government.
“We did not spend it on Akonfem, bus branding, over-priced mansions and contracts, ghost roads, etc. We have spent it on something productive. As a result, Ghana has an excellent digital property addressing system if former president Mahama would care to take some time and just read and learn about it. It was developed by Ghanaians and we should collectively take pride in their work and not try to pull them down.”
Read Dr. Bawumia's full statement below