Infrastructure development growth rate has been phenomenal over the years and this can be attributed to the country's good governance and the enabling policies as well as legislature introduced over the years.
The Minister for Communications, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, stated this when he took his turn at the meet-the-press series to interact with the media and the general public on the progress of the Information Communication Technology (ICT) in Accra yesterday.
He said that with the framework of the government's development agenda to provide transparent and accountable government, strong economy for real jobs, investing in people and expanding infrastructure for growth, the Ministry is situating ICT to provide the needed tools for good governance and support all activities of various sectors of the economy especially entrepreneurship.
Hon. Iddrisu noted that in line with this objective of the government, his outfit is facilitating the existence of a resilient and advanced technology platform upon which solutions and strategies will be delivered to expand and improve education, health delivery, banking and agriculture, among others.
On the E-Government Network Infrastructure Development, the Communication Minister said, to promote the use of ICT in governance, the Ministry has commenced the implementation of the E-government infrastructure project to provide a national network for networking Ministries, Department, Municipal and District Assemblies as well as other public sector organisations.
He believed the move will ensure that the dispersed government IT platforms are more effectively unified managed and aligned to provide better support for government applications.
He also disclosed that the Ghana Communities Network (GCNET) has been awarded the contract to execute the public, private-partnership project under which the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, in conjunction with the Ministry of Communication, is facilitating the automation of the revenue generating agencies including the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Registrar General's Department.
In order to promote an all inclusive information and knowledge society whilst supporting the local government administration, the Ministry, he said, is developing the Community Information Centre initiative, among other things and extends ICT infrastructure and services to the under-served areas of the country.
An Audience Survey Research Project conducted in Ghana by the inter-media indicated that out of the 23.8 million, only 4 per cent of those that were sampled had access to the internet. Also, 80 per cent of the users are aged 15-29 years and 10% had access to computers.
To ameliorate the situation, efforts will be made to provide a universal, ubiquitous, equitable and affordable access to ICT infrastructure services.
Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, however, entreated all stakeholders to preserve in the unrelenting task to ensure that the benefits of ICT for development are made to bear on the lives of the Ghanaian citizen.
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Quelle/Source: Ghana Government, 07.04.2010
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