Potential without structure is just a beautiful idea. And when I walked through those doors, what I found was an organisation running largely on goodwill.
When President John Dramani Mahama appointed me as Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Digital Centres Limited on the 13th of February 2025, I will be honest with you — I was filled with equal measures of excitement and quiet terror. Not because I doubted the work ahead. But because I had spent enough time around institutions to know that the gap between what a place is supposed to be and what it actually is can be vast, and sometimes brutal.
GDCL had potential.
Real, tangible, undeniable potential. But potential without structure is just a beautiful idea. And when I walked through those doors, what I found was an organisation running largely on goodwill, on the dedication of a small group of people who had been asked to do far too much with far too little. A single officer was carrying Finance, Human Resources and Administration simultaneously. Let that sink in. One person. Three functions. An institution that was supposed to be driving Ghana’s digital future was being held together with something close to prayer.
I say this not to embarrass anyone. I say it because I think Ghanaians deserve honesty from their leaders, and I refuse to stand before you and pretend that we inherited a well-oiled machine. We did not. What we inherited was a mandate and a mess, and the first job was to sort one before we could honour the other.
So we started from the inside. We established a Corporate Affairs Department, a Procurement Department, and an Internal Audit function. We separated
Finance, HR and Administration into distinct units with proper reporting lines and accountability structures. We set up an Audit Committee, fulfilling a legal requirement that, remarkably, had never been met in GDCL’s entire history. That is not a small thing. Independent financial oversight and compliance accountability now exist in this organisation for the first time. I am proud of that, not because it reflects well on me, but because it reflects the kind of institution GDCL deserves to be.
We have also been deliberate about procurement. Every purchase, every contract, every process has gone through the proper channels. In a public institution, how you spend public money is not a back-office concern. It is a statement of values. We have made that statement clearly and consistently this year, and we intend to keep making it.
None of this is glamorous work. There are no press conferences for org charts or procurement registers. But I am deeply convinced that you cannot build something lasting on a crumbling foundation, and I was not prepared to scale impact before we had scaled integrity.
And then we began to move.
A Year in Numbers
717 youth trained • 82 startups supported • 336 jobs created • 5 tech companies hosted • 5 countries visited • 289 institutional visitors
717 young people trained in digital and soft skills. 82 startups supported at various stages. 336 jobs created across our ITES-BPO clusters. 5 technology companies hosted with subsidised workspace. International placements. Study visits spanning 5 countries. Strategic partnerships with UCLA, Amazon Web Services, GIZ and JICA. 289 institutional visitors, including a delegation from the Parliament of Zimbabwe, walking through our doors and seeing what Ghana is building.
And then there is the visibility. When I arrived, GDCL’s social media presence was virtually non-existent. We have changed that deliberately and meaningfully. The organisation is now in the conversation, on screens, in newsrooms, and in the timelines of the very young people we exist to serve. That is not vanity. Public institutions funded by the taxpayer owe the public a window into their work. We have opened that window, and we intend to keep it wide.
I am proud of these numbers and of the presence we have built. But I want to be careful about letting them become the whole story, because numbers can deceive. Behind every figure is a young person who came to us not knowing what their future held and left with a skill, a network, a spark. That is what keeps me going on the days when the work is hard and the frustration is real.
And there have been those days. I will not pretend otherwise.
Leading a public institution in Ghana means navigating bureaucracy that was not designed for speed. It means fighting for resources while being expected to deliver results. It means explaining to brilliant young staff why things that should take two weeks take four months. It means carrying the weight of what could be while managing the reality of what is. There were moments in this first year when I sat with the quiet, uncomfortable question every leader faces at some point: is this actually working? Am I actually making a difference?
The answer I kept coming back to was this: it only counts if it reaches people beyond where you are standing.
That is why I have said publicly, and I will say it again here, that I refuse to be a CEO of Ghana Digital Centres who governs nothing but a postcode. Youth in Kumasi deserve the same access to digital opportunity as youth anywhere else in this country. Young people in Tamale, in Ho, in Wa, they are not lesser Ghanaians. Regional expansion is not a future ambition. It is a present moral obligation, and we are working on the plan right now.
We are also partnering with the National Identification Authority to establish a 24-Hour Premium Registration Centre. This is about more than a Ghana Card.
It is about the kind of economy we want to build. President Mahama has spoken about the 24-hour economy and I believe in that vision completely. A country does not run on office hours. Opportunity does not clock out at five in the evening. If we are serious about making Ghana a destination for digital innovation in Africa, then we have to build infrastructure that reflects that seriousness, and that includes services that work around the lives of ordinary Ghanaians rather than the other way around.
Year two is about scale. It is about doubling our youth training capacity to 1,400. It is about supporting 150 startups. It is about taking what we built here and planting it in every region of this country. It is about positioning GDCL not merely as a space that hosts BPOs, but as a genuine, active player in that sector, a place that does not just provide the room but shapes the conversation. It is about making Ghana Digital Centres Limited into the institution the name has always promised.
To every business, investor, development organisation, and institution that believes in Ghana’s digital future: our doors are open. Come and build with us.
I want to speak directly to the private sector and to our development partners for a moment. The work of building a digital economy is not one that any single institution can do alone. We have been fortunate to work alongside UCLA, Amazon Web Services, GIZ and JICA this past year, and those partnerships have shown us what is possible when ambition is matched with collaboration. But we are hungry for more.
To every technology company looking for a credible, government-backed home to grow in Ghana, we are here. To every BPO operation seeking a strategic partner and a ready workforce, we are here. To every development finance institution looking to invest in youth, in innovation, in the kind of infrastructure that produces lasting economic impact, we are here. To every university, research body, and civil society organisation that wants to plug into a living, breathing ecosystem, our doors are open and our table has space.
Ghana’s digital economy will not be built by government alone. It will be built by partnerships that are honest about what each party brings, clear about what they expect, and committed to the long game. That is the kind of partnership GDCL is offering, and that is the kind of institution we are determined to be.
I am grateful to President Mahama for this opportunity. I do not take lightly what it means to be trusted with a mandate this significant at this moment in
Ghana’s history. I believe in his vision for this country, and I believe we are at a turning point. The digital economy is not a sector for a privileged few. It is the foundation upon which Ghana’s next generation will either thrive or be left behind, and every decision we make at GDCL is made with that weight in mind.
One year in, I am more committed than I have ever been. More clear-eyed about the challenges. More certain about the direction. And more convicted that the work we are doing matters, not in the abstract, but in the specific, human, unglamorous, necessary ways that genuine progress always does.
We are building Ghana’s digital future. One trained youth, one supported startup, one created job, one partnership at a time. We are just getting started.
We are building Ghana’s digital future. One trained youth, one supported startup, one created job, one partnership at a time. We are just getting started.
