Three leading Ghanaian fintechs; Hubtel, ExpressPay and IT Consortium joined forces to build Ghana government's portal https://www.ghana.gov.gh – a digital services and payment platform for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Startups and citizens to access government services at the click of a button¹.
Despite being competitors, these tech ventures saw the need to collaborate as a unified front for the Ghana government to entrust them with the building of a national asset in a revenue sharing arrangement between them and the government, enabling a conducive environment for the delivery of essential government services to consumers and businesses.
This represents a constructive case study on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) needed to accelerate the digitization agenda in Africa with Ghana setting the pace. The portal currently processes payments for government services offered by the Passport Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Regional Integration, Lands Commission, Food and Drugs Authority, National Service Secretariat, National Information Technology Authority, Registrar General's Department, and National Schools Inspectorate Authority. The Ghana.gov platform also serves the digitization and revenue-collection needs of other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs)
As of mid July, 2021, about 624,000 users have logged in to pay for 37 government services, comprising taxes, levies, royalties and stamp duties, directly into Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) accounts.
Ghana's Vice President, His Excellency Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who launched the portal on 14th July 2021, opined that "Transactions will be recorded instantly avoiding any bribery and corruption regarding the quoted service."
According to Dr. Bawumia, "It is estimated that about 10 to 15 percent of revenue is lost through inefficiencies, theft or other accounting schemes. Going digital means, we can improve our revenue collection by an estimated $526 million annually." Ghana will also derive expense savings of more than $7 million a year from the digitization mechanism, according to government projections. The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta has recommended national awards for the three-tech firm at the launch saying, "if I had any power, I am sure the Order of the Volta will be conferred on each of them"².
A digitized government creates an enabling environment for a digitized private sector, research, academia, civil society, and citizens. Ghana, host of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat, is leading this charge by awarding the national identification project to an African company, Margins Group³. Margin was started in 1990 by Ghanaian entrepreneur, Moses Baiden and has been in the forefront of identity management. IT Consortium one of the innovative home-grown firms that built the Ghana.gov portal and recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, was founded by Romeo Bugyei, another Ghanaian technology entrepreneur, a former programmer who built software for banks and other financial institutions. Hubtel, which was founded by Alex Bram, Ernest Apenteng and Leslie Gyimah in 2005 (and were later joined by Kwadwo Seinti as CTO), is a leading Fintech and e-Commerce platform. The company started as SMSGH selling Short Messaging System (SMS) for corporate communication⁴. In 2012, Hubtel was listed by Forbes as one of the leading startups in Africa⁵. That same year, ExpressPay was started by Curtis Vanderpuije, Kodjo Hesse, Kwei Hesse and William Tetteh as an eCommerce marketplace and a payment gateway provider in Ghana⁶.
Continue reading "Op-Ed: Fintechs, SMEs and Digitization in Africa – Ghana leads the charge"
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