According to Dr. Bawumia, the former Preisdent has confused the GhanaPostGPS app as the National Digital Property Addressing System. He said the app is a component and not the entire project.
The Vice-President explained that the advantage of GhanaPostGPS app over Google is that google maps cannot confirm an address.
He said the app cannot be cost-free because among others, intellectual property rights are involved while there is also the cost of training for a nation-wide sensitization on the use of the app.
Read the full statement below.
DR. MAHAMUDU BAWUMIA RESPONDS TO MR. JOHN MAHAMA ON THE NATIONAL DIGITAL PROPERTY ADDRESSING SYSTEM (NDPAS).
Yesterday I read that former President Mahama described Ghana’s NDPAS as a 419 scam. When I read his reasoning for such a description, it was evident to me that he has no clue about what he was talking about and was just engaged in parroting propaganda. I actually had a good laugh. Let me therefore take this opportunity to educate him and others who may think like him about Ghana’s landmark digital property addressing which has been achieved in less than one year, something his government could not do in eight years!
I hope that in all humility former President Mahama can now accept criticism from me since by the Grace of God I have now occupied the office of Vice President of the Republic.
What is the National Digital Property Address System?
The NDPAS is a national database system that provides the digital address for every landed property in Ghana. Basically every 5x5m property has a unique digital address on the grid with region, district and postcode. Under this system, 16.1 billion addresses have been generated for the whole of Ghana. It relies on surveyed data from Lands Commission and the Latitude and Longitudes to generate postcodes and addresses for every square inch of Ghana. The NDPAS comes with the National Address Registry to keep records of all citizens on where they register as their office and residential addresses. The Platform comes with open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to allow third party application developers integrate into the system to be able to translate and use the digital addresses to help facilitate transactions. It is important to note that the NDPAS is independent of Google and any other mapping tool. Google will not give the postcode, region or district for a particular location for example. It will not give you a register of addresses for every user. Banks for example cannot confirm an address by going to Google maps but they can do so through the NDPAS for registered users.
It is very important that we distinguish the NDPAS from the applications that are developed to use the system. We should not confuse the system with the applications.
