One of the greatest banes of Ghana over the years has been the issue of corruption, with millions of dollars going down the drain through various corrupt acts.

Over the years, successive governments have expressed their desires to tackle the issue, but the canker seems to always win the battle, as the approach to fighting it has always been the same.

However, NPP flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, seems to be charting a new path in the fight against corruption, following his determined fight against it through digitalisation, which has already prevented several age-old corrupt practices and saved the nation millions of dollars.

At the launch of his manifesto over the weekend, Dr. Bawumia talked tough against corruption and reiterated his desire and passion to fight it.

Unlike the conventional and ineffective way the canker has been fought over the years, Dr. Bawumia insisted the best way to fight corruption is to put in place effective systems to ensure they do not even happen in the first place, just as he led the initiative to curb massive ghost names on government payroll through the Ghanacard.

Below is what Dr. Bawumia said, in full, as captured in his manifesto on how he will deal with corruption as President:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

one of the most potent weapons against corruption is transparency. Many corrupt activities are cash-based.

Apart from the obvious economic benefits of moving in the direction of a cashless society, the literature does indicate that the more electronic payments are used in transactions as opposed to cash, the more there is traceability and therefore the less the corruption.

I would like to bring Ghana close to a cashless economy in the shortest possible time. So far, the Bank of Ghana has made a lot of progress in this direction by putting in place a lot of the systems and infrastructure required.

These include mobile money interoperability, merchant interoperability, Universal QR Code payment system, Gh-Link, debit cards, Ezwich, and GhanaPay. We have put in place the necessary infrastructure for Ghana to go cashless.

Recently, the Bank of Ghana has completed a pilot of a digital version of the Ghana cedi in Sefwi Wiawso. This is known as central bank digital currency (CBDC) or e-cedi. The e-cedi is designed to work online and offline and will be launched by the Bank of Ghana in due course.

The e-cedi will be the ultimate weapon in our fight against corruption because it will provide transparency, reduce the risk of fraud, robbery, tax avoidance, and money laundering since it will be easy to track the movement of money and identify suspicious activity. The e-cedi will quicken the pace of Ghana’s move towards a cashless or near cashless society.

We will also implement blockchain technology and smart contracts for secure data exchange and transparent e-government services.

Employing distributed ledger technology improves transparency and efficiency. This will make all government transactions permanently traceable and not subject to alteration.

Watch the latest episode of Everyday People below: