There is an offline version of the National Digital Property Addressing application, Ghana Post GPS, that will be used to offset the data penetration challenges, according to the Deputy Communications Minister, George Andah.
As at the end of July 2017, the total subscriptions of mobile data in the country was 22,103,467, with a penetration rate of 77.58%, noted to be one of the best in sub-Saharan Africa.
[contextly_sidebar id=”aRMa2DMTpjpWIHHCcVoXcYe6gFNP7t15″]But Mr. Andah noted that, Ghana needed to up its game as far as “providing affordable and accessible broadband is concerned, however, there is an offline version of this app.”
“The offline version is so heavy that if we release it to the public when you download, it will probably chop all your data. That is why we are using the online mode so that when you download, the amount of data that is consumed is insignificant,” he explained on The Big Issue.
This notwithstanding, the Communications Ministry also has teams on the ground “physically assisting people who don’t have access to a smart device or don’t have access to broadband to generate addresses from the offline mode,” Mr. Andah disclosed.
His outfit is collaborating with the National Commission on Civic Education to go “door to door, where there is no broadband access or access to smartphones, to drive education and drive awareness to assist people to generate their digital addresses.”
The Ghana Post offices nationwide will also have these offline mode devices to enable citizens to generate their digital addresses.
The National Digital Property Addressing System, also known as the Ghana Post GPS is aimed at providing an effective means of addressing every location and place in the country, using an information technology application.
The app, which government said cost the country $2.5 million has however been criticized by some experts in the technology space as well as some civil society organizations.
The $2.5 million covers the back-end solution, data analytics, firewalls, servers, the aforementioned Google license, marketing and publicity, technical support, among others.
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonine.com/Ghana