In about a week or so from today, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia will be bringing the curtain down on his illustrious service to the nation as Vice President of the Republic for eight years.
Even though he could not achieve his target of moving up the ladder to serve the country as President in the just-ended 2024 elections, Dr. Bawumia will still go down in the history books as the most impactful Vice President in the history of Ghana.
In a role which was previously ceremonial and dormant, with previous Vice Presidents having little to show in terms of impact, Dr. Bawumia, in eight years, redefined the role, bringing much more honour to it through his problem-solving advocacy and policies.
Bawumia’s focus on championing problem-solving policies throughout his stay in office as Vice President, was so high that, most of the impactful policies and interventions of the Akufo-Addo government are attributed to him.
With about a week left for the Akufo-Addo regime, as many as 34 major government policies, which have addressed age-old problems in Ghana, are credited to Dr. Bawumia, for proposing, and or spearheading them.
Bawumia’s goal to put in place a robust structure for a modern, digital economy, saw him dedicate his effort in office to addressing two key areas, which define digitalisation drive in modern economies; national identity system and property address system.
The effective implementation of these two, addressed Ghana’s age-long problem of lack of national identity system, and national property address system.
Having championed these two pillars, they paved the way for the smooth take off of Ghana’s many digitalisation initiatives, which Dr. Bawumia spearheaded, such as mobile money interoperability, which addressed the big issue of financial exclusion in Ghana, as well as digitalisation of public services like NHIS registration and renewal, paperless ports service, DVLA and passport applications, among others, which brought so much ease to Ghanaians.
Again, through Dr. Bawumia’s digitalisation drive, Ghana has been able to effectively curb the menace of Ghost names on public payrolls, a canker which robbed the public purse of millions of Cedis every month.
Dr. Bawumia’s impact as Vice President, is also felt strongly in the health sector, having spearheaded the innovative delivery of essential medical supplies through drones, which are saving millions of lives in remote communities across the country.
Again in the health sector, the Vice President is also credited with mooting the idea of Agenda 111, the bold initiative by the Akufo-Addo government to construct hospitals in all districts and new regions without hospitals.
Each of the 34 initiatives Dr. Bawumia has introduced and spearheaded addresses a major challenge, which has bedeviled Ghana for years.
He may not have been successful, for now, in his bid to continue serving Ghana as President, but the impact of his service to Ghana is indelible, and his incontestable status as Ghana’s finest Vice President, will even be appreciated much better by posterity.
Below is a detailed analysis of the 34 challenges bedeviling Ghana, which Dr. Bawumia dedicated his time as Vice President to address.
