Property Addressing System to be in first budget - Bawumia

Government is determined to have a digital Property Addressing System as well as a National Identification System by the end of the year, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has indicated.

In line with this, provision will be made for the two systems in the maiden Nana Akufo-Addo government budget to be presented next month.

Provision will be made for the digital Property Addressing System as well as a National Identification System in the first Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo budget to be presented next month.

Two committees – Legal and Technical – have been tasked to undertake the necessary legal, logistical and financial consultation, and design a roadmap for implementation. They have two weeks to submit their reports.

The meeting was attended by key stakeholders including Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Hajia Alima Mahama and reps of Ghana Police, ECG, Lands Commission, National Information Technology Agency (NITA), Ghana Post, Administrator of Stools, Tema Development Corporation, Survey and Mapping Division, Land Valuation Division, and Land Administration Project.

In Ghana today, MMDAs and other state agencies such as ECG, Ghana Water, Lands Commission and Ghana Post all have different ways of identifying properties, hinged on different technologies. The Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government has identified the implementation of a digital addressing system as key to harmonizing all such systems into a single data resource to aid national planning.

The technology exists. We need to leverage on them to leapfrog to the next generation of proper addressing. This goal has to be achieved this year, in tandem with the National Identification System. The digital property addressing system will be a major legacy that we will leave for generations to come

The last time Ghana was comprehensively mapped was in 1974, according to officials of the Lands Commission. The Land Administration Project (LAP), which began in 2003, has been able to map only 10% of Ghana’s landmass