The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has declared that the government is set to introduce a new tax application sometime next week for the filing of taxes to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
He made this known at the inauguration ceremony of the Academic City University College (ACity) in Accra yesterday, where he added that: “This will allow persons and organisations with tax identification numbers to be able to file their taxes on their mobile phone, and enable them pay their tax and get tax clearance certificate automatically.”
The Vice President continued that individuals or organisations would not have to go to the GRA office, but rather go through the application which was designed to be accessible to everyone in society.
Successful economic transformation in the 21st Century, according to Dr. Bawumia, would significantly rely on the provision of tertiary education in digital and information technology, which was responsible for the growing global demand for high quality relevant visions, which would concentrate on teaching the youth problem-solving skills.
Also, he added that the government was perusing technology, not for the sake of technology, but to rather solve problems and build a database to science to solve problems.
Digitalisation achievements
Addressing the gathering, the Vice President noted that the government had implemented the National Identification System with the Ghana Card, and had registered about 16 million Ghanaians with a unique national ID, which was helping it fish out ghost names in the system.
He stated: “We had a problem of no working address system that was applicable to the whole country and we solved this problem by creating a national digital property address system so in Ghana today every 5x 5qm of land or water has a unique digital address.”
The problem of lack of mobile money interoperability between bank accounts and mobile money wallets, he said, had also been solved by implementing a mobile money interoperability system, which allowed customers on one telecommunication network to transfer money to another, and also in bank account and mobile money wallets, which had made Ghana the fastest growing mobile money market in Africa.
Notwithstanding, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia further added that his outfit had resolved the difficulties in renewing National Health Insurance cards on mobile phones at home, without going to queue up at the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) office.
Again, the problem of buying electricity units at the offices of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) had also been solved by buying it online “at your comfortable zone.”
“The same applies to obtaining a passport, we digitalised the process, no corruption involved, you apply at home and it can be delivered at home as well using your digital address.”
The ports, Dr. Bawumia added, had automated the clearing of goods through a paperless process, and that had reduced corruption significantly.
“We have also solved a major headache in terms of government travels by introducing travel cards, thus visa and master cards for government officials who travel so that we can track the accountability,” he said.
Education
In Ghana, the Vice President stated the provision of elevating education remains a key consideration on the country’s development agenda, therefore, higher educational institutions, both public and private, were encouraged to provide graduates with job-relevant skills in order to meet the demands of the job market.
This, he said, was necessary to ensure accelerating industrial jobs, which would improve the living conditions of Ghanaians and enhance economic growth.
“The vision of Academic City University College is not only in line with government’s vision and goal but also in tune with the global human resources demand.
The establishment of Academic City to provide these innovative programs that will allow well equipped graduates to become relevant and competitive in the job market cannot be over emphasised, and as such the government will continue to support the partnership between government, our universities, research institutions and the industry at large,” Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia reiterated.
The Deputy Minister of Education, John Ntim Fordjour, who was present at the ceremony, congratulated the school and also added that the institution had the focus and core mandate in raising engineers, scientists, inventors, men and women, who had 21st Century skills to solve some of the core complex challenges in the country, and the world beyond.
He has, therefore, promised his outfit’s support to the school in carrying out its mandate.
The founder and Chief Executive Officer of the ACity, Mr. Dev Vayani, who also took his turn to address the gathering, said his institution is keen to offering the best and the most excellent teaching methodology in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and entrepreneurship.
“In a way we want to go beyond this and perhaps one day be true to our name and be a real academic city offering the entire teaching possibilities. “He added
To him, a country’s higher education system with all its flaws remains the key part of a strategic reserve and as such government needs to support all the serious players in the industry and even more so in today’s micro economic development.
About Academic City University College
Academic City is a premium quality tertiary education institution in Africa with a state-of-the-art ultra-modern campus in Accra, Ghana and receives accreditation by the National Accreditation Board of Ghana for distance learning at Ring Road Central.
The school recruits and admits its highest caliber of freshman students yet, offering 20 bright high school students from across Ghana with some form of a merit scholarship. The institution offers courses in Engineering, Business, Informatics and Communication Arts.
