Ghana Post has begun embossing the digital addresses of 4,000 state institutions and other popular buildings nationwide.
Prominent facilities in Accra that already have their digital addresses embossed include the National Theatre, all the ministries, some senior high schools, the Ghana Tourism Authority head office, headquarters of the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana National Fire Service, Ghana Health Service, post offices, Accra Sports Stadium, Ghana News Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency.
In Kumasi, the Court of Appeal Complex, the Metropolitan Assembly, Manhyia Palace and its museum, the High Court, Komfo Anokye sword site, the zoo, Office of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, the prisons and the Asokore Mampong District Assembly have all been embossed with their digital addresses.
The selected institutions were chosen for the first phase because it would easily facilitate government business, as well as make it easy to locate popular places such as tourist sites, churches, and mosques without asking for directions.
Almost 800 places have so far been tagged in the exercise which is expected to end in December.
Currently, more than 1,000 verifications of the digital addresses in the Brong Ahafo, Western, Volta, Greater Accra, and Ashanti regions have been completed, making them ready for the embossment of their digital addresses.
The acting Managing Director of the Ghana Post Company Limited, James Kwofie, said the Ministry of Communications was working out how other properties, including residential ones, would be tagged and how it would be funded.
“The physical tagging is to increase awareness and visibility. It is not just enough to say people have digital addresses, but we are going a step further to put it on structures for people to identify them. The expectation is that people can use their address to indicate where they live or work.
“We want to make it easy for people to go anywhere – from tourist sites, churches, pubs, homes and government offices without asking anyone for direction. All you need is the digital address to get there and for us at Ghana Post, it will make our deliveries easier and faster and cut down the number of undelivered parcels due to addressing challenges we experienced in the past,” he said.
Mr. Kwofie said contrary to the skepticism about the National Property Addressing System, its enormous benefits would begin to play out when it was fully integrated with the work of essential services, including crime-fighting, banking, firefighting, ambulance services, land registration and courier services.
Mr. Kwofie encouraged the public to go beyond downloading the app to also register their addresses for home and workplaces as, in the near future, banks and institutions such as the National Identification Authority would need their addresses for verification that would enable them to access essential services.
The GhanaPost GPS was launched on October 18, 2017, by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
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