IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

One has often wondered why Ghana has not made our relationship with Estonia - such as it is - a top foreign policy objective. Estonia, after all, is a global leader in e-governance - and our country can gain a lot from collaborating with its enlightened leadership, in the quest to digitised our system.

In the drive to enable Ghana grow and expand its e-governance ecosystem, the possibility of our country being ripped off by commercial partnerships formed between the high-level rent-seeking cabals in our system, and the unethical executives of foreign tech companies, should never be discounted. A classic example is the U. S.$72 millions spent on what eventually turned out to be useless software for the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

The NCR, made up of journalists specializing in the digital world, technology and telecom, hopes that the new pledge will assist in developing the knowledge and understanding of the ICT and telecom sectors in the country as the government pushes forward on a number of projects, including broadband expansion to rural areas and e-government initiatitves.

Dr Robert A. Baffour, Vice President of the Ghana Telecom University College (GTUC) disclosed this while speaking at the University of Ghana Business School where NIIT Ghana graduated diploma students recently.

He spoke on Ghana's internet infrastructure which he codenamed 'Project Ghana.'

“I dream of the day that women of Topreman, Kpandai, Vli Afegame, Pobiman, Chorkor can electronically access maternal health information, register the birth of their children, check on market prices for cassava and maize in different parts of the country, get insights on what their assembly plans to do in the market where they sell, complain about burst pipes and noisy preachers in their localities and be informed about the fees fixed on their dress-making businesses.

The original e-Ghana Project, which was estimated to cost $40 million, was approved in 2006 to support the Ghana Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Accelerated Development Program.

Barely 10 years ago, the story was different since the total number of internet subscribers in 1999 stood at 13,000. Subscriber per 10,000 people was 6.88 percent and a year later the number of internet users increased to 20,000.

Current data available indicate that over two million Ghanaians have access to the internet.

Statistics collated this year reveal that, total phone subscriptions went up from 11,570,430 in 2008 to `15,318,225 while internet users climbed from as low as 45,000 last year to 2,500,000 this year.

This was made known by the Minister of Communication, Haruna Iddrisu when he took his turn at the Meet-the-0Press series in Accra yesterday to touch on issues to do with the Ministry.

The e-governance project is being carried by Huawei, with the first phase the project – the service centre – handed to the Ministry of Communications. The centre will deliver government’s services to citizens under the e-government programme.

To this effect, rLG Institute of Technology, a subsidiary of rLG Communications, had been contracted by government to train 50,000 teachers nationwide as well as provide them with laptops for the first phase of the project.

A few weeks to the Ghana biometric elections, I had the rarest privilege of working at the warehouse where the biometric devices were being assembled. Please don’t ask me how. It was a great experience, getting to work on the devices, sieving the malfunctioning ones, etc. Honestly, I was surprised to hear in the media that some of the devices had stopped working. They felt robust at the warehouse. But as you may already know, machines are machines.

The offices would serve the needs of persons in those regions wanting to apply for biometric passports, bringing to an end the era where, would-be applicants had to come all the way to the national capital, Accra, to have their applications processed.

The Minister of Foreign, Alhaji Muhammad Mumuni, who was personally present at the Kumasi inauguration said, given the enormous interest shown by the Ghanaian public since the new system was introduced, they were compelled to speed up the decentralization of the system.

The Biometric Registration is geared towards the collation of an accurate data on about 730,000 government CAP 30 pensioners and public sector employees on the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) pensioners’ payroll.

This is to help clean, update and eliminate all ghost names from the payroll of pensioners in the country.

The biometrics business continues as normal in parts of Africa. A new ePassport agency opens in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, despite closed borders and social distancing requirements. Idemia appoints a new East Africa sales director, soon after its good news in Kenya. Nigeria connects more bank accounts to national IDs, Malawi strikes off over 4,000 potential ‘ghost pensioners,’ and at the humanitarian end of the spectrum, the UNHCR is continuing its biometric registration work as it faces tens of thousands of refugees arriving in Niger.

Dr Albert Antwi-Boasiako, National Cybersecurity Advisor, has underscored the need for Ghana to incorporate blockchain into its technology ecosystem.

He said blockchain technology had a superior security mechanism and was crucial for the country's digital transformation.

Dr Antwi-Boasiako said this at the 4th Ghana Blockchain Virtual Conference held in Accra on the theme, “Mainstreaming Blockchain for Digital Transformation.”

The Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) has teamed up with tech giant Google to establish a network of three ICT centres in Northern Ghana, which will act as hubs for learning, communication and entrepreneurship in some of the poorest and most remote rural regions of Northern Ghana.

Camfed is an international non-profit organisation dedicated to eradicating poverty in Africa through the education of girls and the empowerment of young women. Camfed has been working in Ghana since 1998 and, with the help of the Ministry of Education, has reached 50,000 children in the Northern Region, as well as training 0ver 2000 women in economic and life skills.

Stating that COVID-19 crisis has become the single biggest catalyst for digital transformation, the African Union (AU) Commissioner for Infrastructure & Energy, Amani Abou-Zeid, has urged solidarity and partnership for Africa’s digitization.

The AU Commissioner made the remarks during the virtual e-governance conference organized by Estonian e-Governance Academy under the theme “Giant Leaps Start with Small Steps,” according to an AU statement on Saturday.

Ghana’s search for effective and sustainable connectivity solutions for its rural populations gathered momentum on Monday, in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo region, during a workshop of key stakeholders which included the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), Ghana’s Ministry of Communications, the National Communications Authority (NCA), the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), members of parliament from the region, as well as operators, ISPs, CSOs, academia, traditional and community leaders.

The US$84.7 million which was awarded in August 2006 was also meant to contribute to improved efficiency and transparency of selected government functions through e-government applications.

The objective of the e-Ghana Project is to assist the Government in generating growth and employment, by leveraging information and communication technology (ICT) and public-private partnerships, and to develop the IT Enabled Services and contribute to improved efficiency and transparency of selected government functions, through e-government applications.

One problem that has stifled the development of Ghana is corruption. The President of policy think IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe asserted that loses over $3 billion of taxpayer’s money in corrupt activities every year. He made this assertion in 2016 so between then and now, if we are to go by what he said, Ghana has lost $6 billion if not more.

One of the problems about corruption is its value. When I talk of value, I’m not referring to the bare cost but I’m looking at what the money could have been used for. With major infrastructural deficits, corruption should not be encouraged in any shape or form.