COMMUNICATIONS MINISTRY REVIEWING ICT (PAGE 42, AUGUST 12, 2010)

THE Ministry of Communications is in the process of reviewing the national Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to include environmentally friendly (green) ICT, Geographical Information Systems and District Level ICT policies.
In this connection, stakeholders in the information society are expected to provide inputs whenever they are called upon.
The Sector Minister, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, announced this in a speech read for him in Sunyani.
He said as a matter of policy, the National Communications Authority (NCA) had been mandated to auction Broadband Wireless Access Licenses to facilitate the provision of last mile solutions by the private sector to address the policy objective of universal access.
That, Mr Haruna said, was expected to make government services accessible and available to the rural communities to manimise the digital divide and also create ICT jobs in the communities.
In his address to open the Commonwealth Africa Rural Connectivity Initiative In-Country Capacity Building Workshop, Mr Iddrisu stressed: “As a country, we need to find innovative and novel solutions to the problem of rural connectivity.”
According to him, the utilisation of rural connectivity allowed the sharing of scarce medical resources with rural areas, including instant access to expert diagnosis, and that, through rural connectivity, the educational system would also be enhanced with access to distance learning and education.
The workshop, organised by the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) in collaboration with the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisations (CTO), was based on the Commonwealth Africa Rural Connectivity Initiative (COMARCI) project, ahead of the fifth Annual Connecting Rural Communities Africa Forum, scheduled for August 17 to 19, 2010.
The participants included Members of Parliament (MPs), District Chief Executives (DCEs), traditional rulers, religious leaders, market women and representatives of the Trades Union Congress, as well as experts in the communications sector.
Mr Iddrisu stated that it was also the intention of the government to promote fresh investment initiatives and opportunities in the ICT sector for data services via WiMAX.
“I must admit that the provision of the main line (Fibre) connectivity solutions also required last mile solutions to individual households and communities,” he said.
Mr Iddrisu stressed that it was the government’s policy to promote electronic governance that facilitated the effective delivery of government services to citizens, businesses and others, and also to connect hospitals, schools, police stations, National Health Insurance Scheme, immigration, Agricultural Extension Services, Internal Revenue Service and the Value Added Tax offices in all towns that were within the network coverage areas.
The Chief Executive Officer of the CTO, Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, in a presentation, explained that the organisation and the digital divide provided for the international community, effective means to help bridge the digital divide and achieve social and economic development by delivering to developing countries, unique knowledge sharing programmes in the use of ICT in the specified areas of telecommunications, Information Technology (IT), broadcasting and the Internet.
The Administrator of GIFEC, Mr Kofi Attor, stated that GIFEC was set up in 2004 with a view to bridging the digital divide, adding that the earlier ICT was extended to the rural areas the better.
He disclosed that there were about 140 communication centres established across the country with 90 officially opened to be fixed with computers to enable the communities to have access to them for their studies, especially schoolchildren.
Mr Attor added that there were State of the Art ICT centres established in all the 38 Colleges of Education in the country which would enable the teacher trainees to come out and effectively handle children in ICT.
In a welcoming address, the Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Eric Opoku, said undoubtedly, accessible and affordable use of ICT was critical not merely because it promoted social intercourse through electronic means, but it also improved governmental and business services to isolated communities.