The flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Dr Mahamadu Bawumia has outlined his vision for Ghana.
Among his visions, he said he will cause to be published online, details of all public contracts for public scrutiny.
Delivering an address at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), on Wednesday February 7, he said one of the most potent weapons against corruption is transparency.
Many corrupt activities are cash-based, he said.
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, he stressed.
“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 QRCode 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 note 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. In my humble opinion, the e-cedi, with appropriate privacy protections, 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. To move towards a cashless economy however, we have to encourage the population to use electronic channels of payment. To accomplish this, there will be no taxes on digital payments under my administration. The e-levy will therefore be abolished.
“Furthermore, I will cause to be published online details of all public contracts for public scrutiny.”