Antwi-Boasiako: Blockchain technology crucial for Ghana’s digital transformation

Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako, the national cybersecurity Advisor, has underscored the need for Ghana to incorporate blockchain into its technology ecosystem.

He said blockchain technology had a superior security mechanism and was crucial for the country’s digital transformation.

Dr Antwi-Boasiako said this at the 4th Ghana Blockchain virtual conference held in Accra on the theme, “Mainstreaming Blockchain for Digital Transformation.”

Blockchain is a system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack or cheat the system.

It is said to be essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain.

The event was organised by Ghana Blockchain Network with support from Mobile Web Ghana, Ghana Dot Com, and Bank of Ghana to deepen the multi-stakeholder approach to the governance of blockchain technology in and around the world.

Dr Antwi-Boasiako said the technology could help in Ghana’s land administration, support research by industries and academia, and emphasised the need for the country to explore the know-how.

He said it was necessary to have the technology under the National Information Technology Agency’s (NITA) stable regulation to bridge the technological gap in the country.

Dr Antwi-Boasiako said for the technology to be adopted in the country, awareness creation was needed, especially amongst policy makers, and tasked the stakeholders to engage.

Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, an engineer and a pioneer in Internet development in Africa, said it was unfortunate that the Bank of Ghana had decided not to recognise bitcoin as a legal tender and hopeful ongoing engagements with the central bank would serve as a “soft way of influencing” each other along the lines of finding a reasonable balance between innovation and regulation in the country.

Pindar Wong, commissioner, Global Commission on Internet Governance, said the world was facing a “Financial Pandemic” due to the rapid substitution of currencies.

He defined currency substitution as the using of a foreign currency in lieu of, or in addition to, a country’s domestic currency, primarily due to the greater stability of the foreign currency.

Wong, therefore, charged regulators to fix the challenge with “financial vaccination.”

He said, “Financial Vaccination” is about “immunising one’s mind and not the body.”

“It involves a drastic change in mindset and leaving behind a linear way of thinking in an exponential world and evolving exponentially.”

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