Ghana's Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, Sam George, wants to end the era of politically-driven budgets and infrastructure promises made on campaign trails — and he is got a specific plan to do it.
Speaking ahead of the second episode of the Digital Economy Forum, the Ningo-Prampram MP disclosed that the government is actively developing a national data exchange hub designed to connect 48 data registries spread across public institutions in Ghana. The goal: give decision-makers real-time, cross-sector data so that every cedi spent on development can be justified by evidence, not sentiment.
Budgets by Data, Not by Rhetoric
Sam George did not mince words about the current state of public planning. He argued that development decisions in Ghana are too often shaped by political promises and community lobbying rather than a clear-eyed look at what people actually need.
"The finance minister should be able to write a budget that is not driven by sentiments and political rhetoric, but that is driven by hardcore data at the click of a button," he said.
The hub would allow institutions across health, education, infrastructure, and other sectors to share and analyse data collectively. That kind of cross-sector visibility, he says, would help policymakers spot a community's most critical needs — even when those needs are not the loudest voices in the room.
The Maternity Ward vs. the Road
To illustrate his point, George walked through a hypothetical that felt anything but hypothetical. A politician campaigns in a community, hears calls for a new road, and promises one. It is visible, it is popular. But what if the health data sitting in a separate registry told a different story?
"The reality is, if you took the data sets that were being generated from different registries — for example, the health sector — you would realise that maternal mortality in that community was 12% higher than the national average," he explained.
"It then meant that the real concern and need of that community, even though they may need a road, the primary thing that will make the lives of those people better would have been a maternity ward or a hospital in there."
It is a simple argument, but one with big implications for how Ghana spends public money. When registries do not talk to each other, critical patterns stay invisible — and infrastructure decisions get made on vibes rather than vital signs.
AI at the Centre of Public Administration
The data hub is not a standalone project. According to Sam George, it is part of a broader government strategy to integrate artificial intelligence into public administration — using machine learning and analytics to surface patterns that human analysts might miss across thousands of data points from disparate agencies.
He pushed back directly on the idea that political visibility or pressure from influential figures — a chief, a community leader — should determine where investments go. "What is reporting in the hospital? What is happening to the pass rate in that community?" he asked, framing data access as the only reliable answer to those questions.
"I think that where we should get to as a country is that our interventions in communities must be driven by hardcore empirical evidence," George stressed.
What Comes Next
The minister did not provide a firm timeline for when the hub would be operational, but the announcement at the Digital Economy Forum signals the government is treating this as a near-term priority rather than a long-range aspiration.
If fully implemented, the platform would represent a significant shift in how Ghana's public sector handles data — moving from siloed, institution-specific records toward a unified infrastructure where development planning and national policy decisions can be grounded in real, connected data.
For now, the question is execution. Connecting 48 registries across agencies with different systems, mandates, and data standards is technically demanding work. But the political will, at least from Ghana's Communications Ministry, appears to be there.