Gov’t Defends Ghana Post GPS

Government has refuted claims made by the Coalition for Democratic Governance (CDG) that the Ghana Post GPS is a loot and share scheme.

The Deputy Minister for Communication, George Andah, responding to issues raised by the group at a press conference organized by CDG on Monday said there is nothing of substance in their claims.

He said the introduction of the Ghana Post GPS is in line with the smart economy government intends to build in the country

“We were expecting something constructive when we heard they had called for a press conference, so we came and unfortunately it is still the same propaganda. Ghana Post is not a navigation system, it is a system for generating digital addressing system on which you have the added benefits of using emergency services such as police, ambulance, fire service ,and an additional benefit of using a navigation as well ”, he stressed.

Touching on why Ghana Post website has a replica privacy policy as that of Asaase GPS, he said there is nothing wrong in taking the privacy policy of Assase GPS if it is relevant.

According to him, Asaase GPS is a generic solution that the developers (Vodakom) had, and Ghana Post GPS is customized to be used only in Ghana.

He also argued that government won’t be using the services of google after 12 months.

“When you as an individual is using google to search or to navigate it is free of charge, but when an enterprise or a business is using google as part of their solution they are charged at a fee of $400,000. For the first 12 months we are obliged to pay this amount for using the google map as part of the tools for the navigation. However what we decided to do is that within the 12 months we are going to harmonize the physical maps that the Ministry of local government and development had done and so we will not be using google going forward”, he said.

A US based Ghanaian GPS expert, Kingsley Mortey on Monday at the press conference described the $2.5m GhanaPost GPS app deal as a “create, loot and share” scheme.

He argued that the technology already existed on Google and the newly introduced app is meant to fleece the taxpayer.

“In every interview that I have had so far, consistently, I say I want to stay away from saying that it is a scam but the response that I am getting is pushing to get to the kind of conclusion that it is a create, loot and share,” he stressed.

Source: Emmanuel Yeboah Britwum/ thePublisher