We need a paperless economy - Dr. Omane Boamah

Accra, May 4, GNA - Dr Edward Omane Boamah, Deputy Minister of Environment, Science And Technology, on Wednesday called on institutions, especially government establishments, to move away from a paper-intensive processes to using digital data management systems.

He was speaking at the opening of a two-day seminar, organised by Inter-regional Bridge Group (IBG) in collaboration with Computhink Inc and Kodak on the theme: 93Government and business solutions in Action-Ghana 2011". Dr Omane Boamah said in Ghana, retrieval of documents in paper form wa= s very difficult and may sometimes require the person requesting the document to pay an amount of money.

This, he said, was due to the fact that that paper may have collected a lot of dust or may even have been misplaced.

Dr Omane Boamah said the process of retrieving becomes laborious to th= e person who has to retrieve it especially if he/she has medical conditions such as asthma, which can be triggered by dust particles. He said the adoption of an efficient data management system would ensure easy storage and retrieval of data and a paperless economy. Dr Omane Boamah said: "A paperless economy is what we need," and a= sked the organisers to brief government on the outcome of the seminar so that it would adopt the system. He said that the poverty gap between sub-Saharan Africa and other developed countries was also a technological gap that needed to be filled rapidly.

Mr. Kwame Ato Bonnie, Chief Executive Officer of IBG Ghana, said the seminar was a developmental initiative, to educate and inform Ghanaian organisations on the necessity of using digital DMS instead of paper and to get them to identify and consider the transition from paper to digital documents. He said although these organisations already had a backlog of paper documents, it was advisable to start using DMS now and then transforming th= e paper document into electronic form.

Mr Bonnie said Computhink's system had been selected as the showcase= of the system for the seminar because it was more affordable and easy to use adding that 93It is not too sophisticated, it uses basic systems." He said that no company would lose data stored in the system since the document would be backed up and could be retrieved any time. Mr Joseph Wharram, Vice President of Computhink Incorporated, took participants through the cost of generating, filing and retrieving paper records and risks involved, and the benefits of implementing a digital system.

He said that the use of the digital system would reduce retrieval time by 30-90 per cent, give near instant access, reduce office space used for storage by 50-80 per cent and ensure greater file integrity and security as well as greater accountability internally and externally. Mr Wharram said the system could also enhance customer service by improving flow of information; reduce administrative workload and increase productivity and profitability. Speakers at the seminar include Mr. Robert Curzon Jones, Managing Director and founder GAP International Group, Mr Stephen Cobham, Technical Director, Stack Data Solutions, Mr Daniel Tetteh, Consultant, Ghana Nationa= l Archives and Mr Fred Mensah, Micro Warehouse Ghana Limited.