Fibre Optics already exist in the southern portion of the country through Volta River Authority's Voltacom infrastructure, which stretches from Kumasi, Nkawkaw, Accra, Winneba, Cape Coast and to Obuasi.
This was revealed by the deputy minister of communications, Dr. Benjamin Aggrey Ntim, during the start of the tenth information and communication technology exhibition and conference in Accra organized by AITEC West Africa yesterday.
He said to facilitate the judicious use of ICT in the country, the ministry of communications has facilitated the drafting of an e-Government Interoperability Framework Policy (e-GIF).
"Areas such as interconnectivity, data integration, e-services access and content management will be covered, thus articulating a set of agreed policies and standards to allow electronic information and transactions to operate seamlessly across agencies and jurisdictions," he added.
Speaking on the topic 'e-Government and Knowledge Management', the Director of the Ghana Information and Communications Technology Directorate (GICTeD), the operational arm of the Ministry of Communications, said the e-government project has reached the stage where laws are being formulated to monitor the sector called e-legislation.
E-government is a form of e-business in governance and refers to the processes and structures pertinent to the delivery of electronic services to the public (citizens and businesses), collaborating with business partners and conducting electronic transactions within an organizational entity.
The Director, Mr. Kojo Anyane-Yeboa, said the strategic objective of e-governance is to support and simplify governance for all parties; government (G2G), citizens (G2C), and businesses (G2B). The use of ICTs can connect all three parties and support processes and activities.
In other words, in e-governance electronic means to support and stimulate good governance, therefore the objectives of e-governance are similar to the objectives of good governance.
Good governance can be seen as an exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority to better manage affairs of a country at all levels.
A distinction can be made between the objectives for internally focused processes (operations) and objectives for externally focused services of an e-government environment. He said the external objective of e-government is to fulfill the public's needs and expectations satisfactory on the front-office side, by simplifying the interaction with various online services. The use of ICT in government operations facilitates speedy, transparent, accountable, efficient and effective interaction with the public, citizens, business and other agencies.
He said the internal objective of e-government in government operations is to facilitate a speedy, transparent, accountable, efficient and effective process for performing government administration activities.
Significant cost savings (per transaction) in government operations can be the result.
Ghana has embarked on an e-government journey that is expected to go on endlessly. Initiatives currently being undertaken by the Ministry of Communications include the creation of: an interoperability framework, e-legislation, community information centres, a national fibre optic backbone, a government network, a government portal, and a data centre.
He said Ghana expects a 25% tele-density rate by 2010 from 15% in 2005.
Autor/Author: Joseph Coomson
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 17.05.2006
