PAPERLESS ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM (PAS): Creating a Reliable System for Storing and Retrieving Information in Ghana

Ghana Tech Lab in partnership with HOPin Academy organized a six-week intensive training on web development. Mumuni Rahama Mbanba and Ibrahim Rahima were fortunate to go through this training to become full-stack web developers. With the skills they acquired through this training, they decided to solve a problem in their community by harnessing technology.

In Ghana, most of our institutions and organizations deal with a lot of paper works. Documents in institutions pile up in big storage rooms making it difficult to retrieve. Usually, it slows down work and makes clients wait long hours to be attended to. A survey conducted by Mumuni Rahama Mbanba and Ibrahim Rahima in some institutions such as Lands Commission, Immigration Services, Ghana Statistical Service, CALID, Labour Unit, Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, Ghana Audit Service, etc revealed the frustration of respondents on filing systems. This filling system is increasingly becoming a burden, particularly in a rapidly evolving world that is technology-driven.

Mumuni Rahama Mbanba and Ibrahim Rahima as incubates in HOPin Academy decided to solve this problem of a poor filing system. In a participatory approach, they gathered the views of stakeholders on what could be done to address the documentation challenge.

The program officer at CALID a non-profit community organization in Tamale suggested that a robust system will help in filing their documents. Mr. Mohammed of the Labour Unit added that a system that can make it easy to store files and documents in a soft copy will make their work easier.

After interactions with some of these institutions, they decided to use their skills in web development to address the filing systems Institutions faced by building a database system called PAS.

Paperless Administration System (PAS) is a database system that will be used to store documents and files in Institutions. It is an Intranet system that has the ability to sync data to a redundant backup store. This system will be run by an Administrator within an Institution who can only give access to other users in the Institutions to work on documents assigned to them.

This system is secure and safe as data will be encrypted using end to end encryption methods. PAS is going to make work easier, safer, and convenient for users. The high cost and the waste associated with the traditional filing system will be a thing of the past thus an eco-friendly system.

The Paperless Administration System is going to be the best technology for institutions in Tamale and beyond. “ It’s been great building this product and we hope it meets the demands of users. We are grateful to Ghana Tech Lab and HOPin Academy for this opportunity.” Rahama Iterated.