The scheme of service is to attract IT professionals into the civil and public services and also devise means to keep such professionals within the mainstream of government's development agenda.
The Ministry of Communications, supported by the UNDP, the Ministry of Public Sector Reform and the Office of the Head of Civil Service believe that such a scheme would help implement sector specific ICT policies and ensure that the civil and public service programmes are delivered and undertaken via IT platforms to speed up governance processes and ensure that business is conducted with utmost professionalism.
The development of the scheme of service falls in line with the ICT4D policy goals of the government which emphasize the need to develop an economy based on a rich pool of highly skilled human resources in critical areas.
The policy also calls for an economy in which provision and delivery of services by government and its administrative machinery are facilitated by ICTs.
Ghana like most developing countries suffer from huge shortfalls of critical ICT skills and expertise required for the development and support of ICT applications and systems within the public and private sectors.
Stakeholders say the economy requires a pool of expertise to support the deployment and exploitation of the technologies and systems within organizational set-ups and to support the development of the nation's information and communications economy and society.
Currently the Ministries and the public sector organizations within the Ghana Civil and Public Service do deploy computer and other communications technologies to support their administrative activities and operations as well as to support service delivery to the public.
The majority of them have computerized aspects of their operations and most have roll-out computer and communications networks. Some have also started implementing e-government systems to support government-to-government (G2G), government-to-corporate (G2C) and government-to-business (G2B) services on a limited scale.
According to a study conducted within the civil and public sectors, despite the provisions of setting up the central system, recruitment of IT/IM personnel into the civil and public services is not guided by a well-laid down scheme of service.
The objective of developing the scheme of service therefore is to develop an internationally-benchmarked scheme of service that incorporates best practices and recognizes the requirements, constraints, the realities and the needs of the civil and public services.
It will also ensure that the right caliber of IT/IM personnel are attracted to and engaged by the civil and public service.
Skills retention strategies such as the provision for competitive remuneration packages, grading, duties and responsibilities, staff and career development provisions and a clear career progression path for IT/IM personnel within the civil and public services will be considered.
Minister of Communications, Dr Benjamin Aggrey Ntim says the government had placed a lot of emphasis on the development of the national ICT backbone infrastructure and that the project indicated a great commitment to ensure open access to ICT to enhance knowledge development in Ghana.
"Our aim is to ensure that we provide all the regions and the districts with e-government points of presence to facilitate basic but robust infrastructure to enhance the deployment of ICT in the service delivery sector that you oversee."
The Minister said he believed the effort to adopt a scheme of service was in the right direction and would ensure that the country was not left behind in the process to develop an informed society.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Emily Nyarko
Quelle/Source: AllAfrica, 26.09.2007
