Digital Addressing system (DAS) for Ghana is positive?

ByAdu-Gyasi Dennis

Oct 19, 2017 #Addressing, #digital, #GIS, #map

Ghana has launched and accepted to use a Digital Addressing System (DAS) as reference points for properties and landmarks as opposed to using popular locations which mostly do not survive years on. In the launch, the President of the country commended the GhanaPost and the Ministry of Communication for working assiduously under the guidance of the Vice President.

How to know your address?

It takes a very simple procedure to download the application on any simple mobile phone device that has an internet connection. Simply go to the play store on the phone and locate the application “GhanaPostGPS”. Go through all the processes need to install an application on your phone. Once installed and it starts, you will be required to use your name and phone number to register the application. Be expectant of a code that will be sent as a text message via the phone number you provided during registration. You are good to go in knowing the digital address of your location and properties. The beauty of the processes as I have come to know is that another application which in my view bears a Ghanaian customized name “AsaaseGPS” is also available in the play store to achieve the same result.

Download a copy (https://www.gps.ghanapost.com.gh/mobilemapview.html#AK5326847) and start making people know about your address. Possibly, allow Google to locate it and be linked to several others that could be used to give directions next time one of your friends is visiting.

Benefits out-weigh all others?

The first time I went to open an account with one of the branches of Guaranteed Trust Bank (GT Bank) in Kumasi, Ashanti Region of Ghana, I was made to give a sketch of the direction to my house and the address provided on the utility bill that I used to support my application. If even they had stopped collecting such information, it would have been a thing of the past if a DAS like the one launched by the GhanaPost existed. Mind you, the application has the capability to verify addresses and one would not need to swear to affirm whatever information is given about a location is true.

I traveled to Zimbabwe in 2014 for a training and was amazed at the level of which their addressing systems were improved compared to Ghana. On Google Maps, all I needed to do was to input the name of the location I was visiting and possibly the street name and I would receive the direction together with information of how long it was going to take me to get there if I wanted to walk. Even in your “combi”, you could predict the direction the commercial vehicle was to take. While in Zimbabwe and on Ghana’s independence day celebration, I used that same system to locate the Ghanaian Consulate to visit if perchance there was going to be some drink-up for the occasion. Limiting my experience to Zimbabwe and the ease with which such digital addressing facilities aided my travels in Mali, Australia, Netherlands, Germany and the USA, there is no doubt that an improved addressing system as Ghana has adopted facilitates the identification of landmarks and properties thereby improving businesses.

Prior to hearing the news of the launch of a DAS in Ghana, it was common to use “the blue kiosk”, “the junction with the restaurant”, “the police barrier” and many others as reference points to locate landmarks in Ghana. As funny as it may be, I almost lost a plot of land I bought because my sole identifier was “a mango tree” and the person I shared a boundary with. Despite the pillars, it always took Mr. Nuamah (may his gentle soul rest in peace) to help me have a good reference for my own plot, especially after I found the mango tree cut off.

The family runs a janitorial and waste services but without a permanent and dedicated office. When I wanted to register for Value Added Tax (VAT) to be able to issue the VAT receipt for clients who engage our services, I was told, I cannot be registered since I don’t have a permanent address as an office. Using my home address was not acceptable. It is my hope that, my home address once verified could be accepted for the VAT registration. The DAS should eliminate some of these bottle-necks in raising income for government businesses. There is no iota of doubt in my mind that the DAS will equally promote the virtual businesses that are springing up these days in our country.

I will leave the subject for the connoisseurs of DAS to speak on the benefits we will reap from this move as a Nation.

What the address will not tell you

It is important to note that “to every higher rise, there is a greater fall”. Every detail revealed about a particular address depends on what has been fed into the system. As much as the addresses could not be wrong if you have the best of accuracy as defined by the developers, every other detail will need verifications. I was once traveling from Kintampo to Agbosome in the Volta Region of Ghana for the first time. Google Map’s information about Ghana were quite improve. I resorted to that to guide me make my journey. I was given all the possible short distances and the various traveling times to reach my destination. I arrived at one junction only to be told that the distance ahead of me was a route than a motorable road. I turned and used the routine road which lengthened my journey. In another experience, we were traveling to Lake Bosomtwe on an excursion. We decided to use the Google’s mapping system to direct us. We had to use our “heads” to know that the road network the map was revealed for us to either turn right or left could not be used.

The debate on the choices

When I first heard of the digital addressing system in Ghana from the experts in geo-mapping and surveying, the argument was made as the postal code that the system issues is too long for a small country like Ghana. For example, at the Kintampo PROTOA-Kumasi lorry Terminal, the DAS gives the address as BK-00000-6850 (Accuracy 3M). The BK-00000 is the postal code and the last 6850 is the unique location within that postal code. Some are of the view that we could have used shorter codes that even the aged could remember rather than always writing down up to seven (7) digits. Some say that people could even remember phone numbers which are up to ten digits so why not the postal codes. But what those saying that fail to understand is, phone numbers linked to individuals for identification can be stored on the phone and need not be remembered at all times.

I hold the view that the debate should not be an all or none approach. If we could improve on what has been launched now, then they have my green light, else the seven is far better than when we had none.