What Influences Citizen Use of a Digital National Property Addressing System?: The Case of Ghana's GhanaPostGps

Introduction

A profound technological revolution is sweeping the globe altering governance, business and personal lives in unprecedented ways through emerging technologies such as 5G telecommunications, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), geographic information systems (GIS), and Big Data Analytics (Layton-matthews & Landsberg, 2022). Advancements in technology are driving electronic government and digitalization across the public sector. The term “digitalization” refers to the process of enabling or enhancing processes through the use of digital technologies and digitised data (de Mello & Ter-Minassian, 2020). E-government is the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve revenue mobilisation, promote citizen participation, and access to improved public services (Grigalashvili, 2022). Digitalization of the public sector is a critical priority for many governments worldwide, especially those in developing economies due to immense pressure to provide transparent, effective and efficient public services to citizens (Mensah, 2020). Information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to transform virtually all facets of governance including health, education, social services, taxation and communication (Nguyen et al., 2020; Utama, 2020).

Within the public sector, the sustainability of e-government initiatives is dependent on citizens' willingness and ability to use the systems provisioned (Li, 2021). A positive synergy between the supply-side (government) and demand-side (citizens) of digitalised government services is critical to its success (Pérez-Morote et al., 2020). Several developing countries such as Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria and Rwanda have deployed ICT for accelerated development (ICT4D) towards advancing the United Nations agenda for sustainable development goals (SDGs) (Othman et al., 2020) and enhancing socio-economic development (Ramadan & Abdel-Fattah, 2022). In Africa, few countries have implemented digital addressing systems to enhance location accuracy and service delivery. For instance, Liberia's National Digital & Postal Addressing System (NDPAS), powered by SnooCODE, provides a unique 5–7-digit alphanumeric address code to every location, significantly improving address-related services across various sectors​ (Tech Labari, 2023). Similarly, Nigeria introduced the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) aiding in efficient mail delivery and location services (Ogbonne et al., 2021). E-government platform usage is usually plagued with context-specific challenges such as system complexity, performance, quality and failure to ensure value co-creation with stakeholders (Hu et al., 2019). This study explores the usage intentions of a digital property addressing system; an e-government initiative in a developing country.

The Government of Ghana (GoG) is committing enormous efforts and resources towards the advancement of e-government initiatives aimed at establishing the country as a regional hub for digital services (Adjei-Bamfo et al., 2020). Notable among such e-government initiatives is the national digital property address system (NDPAS), also referred to as Ghana-Post GPS. Ghana as a sovereign state hitherto did not have a property addressing system, a situation which created challenges for local, regional and national authorities across the country to effectively locate and coordinate the resources within their jurisdiction (ACET, 2018). The NDPAS was launched in 2017 to assign a unique digital address to each permanent edifice in the country. The NDPAS is expected to alleviate navigation difficulties faced by emergency response and law enforcement institutions, boost revenue mobilisation from registered businesses and promote national development (PwC, 2017). The NDPAS is a catalyst for national development; however, there is a dearth of research on its adoption and usage.