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.

Kumasi

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.

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Verified

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, Mr 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 scepticism 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.

Download & register

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.

It is to aid in policy initiatives and planning on the part of the government, provide accurate data for planning and service delivery for service providers and ultimately, make it easy to identify and find locations, as well as boost emergency service delivery.

It was designed by Vokacom, a Ghanaian information technology firm, with the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) expected to host the data.

The GhanaPost GPS is a global addressing system which divides Ghana into 5m x 5m squares and assigns each one a unique address, known as the digital address.

A national address registry is being imbedded in the system to enable individuals to validate their homes and businesses for easy direction and identification.