A group calling itself Coalition of National Youth Organisers has taken a swipe at Vice-president Mahamudu Bawumia for using his fireside conversation at Ashesi University on the theme: ‘Transforming an Economy Through Digitalisation – The Ghana Story’ on Tuesday, 2 November 2021 as a launchpad for his presidential ambition.      

According to the group, it is such a disappointment that the much-hyped Bawumia speech, which was anticipated to give hope to the Ghanaian youth, turned out to be nothing but a self-praise and launch of the Vice-president's bid to succeed President Nana Akufo-Addo as the next flag bearer of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

“Dr Bawumia chose to talk and hype a book he wrote some years back, which did not receive the acknowledgement he wanted, so, he began his speech by relaunching his supposed book all over again. Dr Bawumia decided to bore us with things like the Ghanacard, which was introduced by the administration of former president Kufuor, which was continued by the late President Mills’ administration and concluded by the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's government,” the statement said. 

The statement noted that despite Dr Bawumia’s talk on the Ghanacard, most institutions like banks still refuse to accept the card as a form of identification. 

The group also disputed the claim by the Vice-president that there are 30 million mobile money accounts.

According to the statement, the total population of Ghana, according to the Ghana Statistical Services, is a little over 30 million people. “So, is Dr Bawumia telling us that almost every Ghanaian owns a mobile phone?” the group quizzed.  

“Again, is he telling us that the fact that one owns a mobile phone makes them an automatic subscriber of the mobile money service?”

The statement explained that Dr Bawumia spent his time talking about the interoperability platform which allows one to link their bank account to their mobile money account but added that he failed to tell Ghanaians how the government was raising revenue through this means. 

Read the full statement below:

BAWUMIA'S SPEECH WAS A SELF-APPRAISAL FORUM AND LAUNCH OF THE BAWUMIA FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN: COALITION OF NATIONAL YOUTH ORGANISERS 

It is such a disappointment that the much-hyped Bawumia speech, which was anticipated to give hope to the Ghanaian youth turned out to be nothing but self-praising and launch of the vice president's bid to succeed Nana Akuffo as the next flagbearer of the NPP. 

Dr Bawumia choose to talk and hype a book he wrote some years back which did not receive the acknowledgement he wanted, so he began his speech by relaunching his supposed book all over again. 

Dr Bawumia decided to bore us with things like the Ghana card, which was introduced by the administration of former president Kufuor, which was continued by the President Mills administration and concluded by the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's government. It is instructive to note that, most institutions like banks still refuse to accept the Ghana card as a form of identification. It is important to note that, there has not been a former merging of the data on the Ghanacard and another form of identification like birth certificates, ATM cards among others. 

Dr Bawumia in his speech mentioned that, with the introduction of the mobile money platform, it was discovered that there are 30 million Mobile accounts, which we doubt. According to the Ghana statistical services, the total population of Ghana is a little over 30 million people, is Dr Bawumia telling us that almost every Ghanaian owns a mobile phone? Again, is he telling us that, the fact that one owns a mobile phone, makes them an automatic subscriber of the mobile money service? Dr Bawumia spent time talking about the interoperability platform which allows one to link their bank account to their mobile money account. 

What he failed to tell us, is how the government is raising revenue through this means. For every transfer of money from one's bank account to their mobile money account/wallet, there is a service charge, Dr. Bawumia as the head of the economic team failed to tell us, how the government is taking advantage to raise revenue.

Again, it has become evident that telecommunications companies are now metamorphosing into banks and insurance companies through digital platforms. We would have love to know how the government is generating revenue through this opportunity. Dr Bawumia admits that digitisation has come to stay. He made reference to the fact that e-commerce is taking over from the traditional way of doing business. 

Again, he admits that a lot of financial transactions are done online and a lot of Ghanaians are patronising it, he, however, failed to tell us the modalities put in place to combat cybercrime and to assure Ghanaians that the cybercrimes we witness like mobile money fraud will be a thing of the past. As the chairman of the police council, we were looking forward to hearing from him how many police officers have been recruited and trained to Mann our cyberspace. We want to remind the vice president that most of the digital addresses issued still mislead people to cocoa farms and dead-end roads as their final destination. 

We were hoping that the vice president again will tell us that, computer programming is going to be introduced in our basic schools to show his commitment to a digitised Ghana, but all we heard were the intention to distribute laptops and tablets which will have the hardcopy curriculum programmed on it. A holistic look at the much-hyped but nothing new Bawumia speech event is nothing but a launch of his bid to become the next flagbearer of the NPP. 

Signed 

Coalition of national youth organisers.