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.'
'Ghana needs people who understand the complex nature of network and simulation algorithms. Ghana needs to change all the old routers, servers, the hubs, the cables and the modems. In sum, Ghana needs e-generation to make this country work and be a fully active player in the e-revolution.
According to him, the unemployment rate in the country, the nature of Ghana's road infrastructure, level of sanitation and drainage facilities, level of law enforcement and the kind of political talk generated in the news, all point to the fact that 'Ghana needs a new breed of leaders, administrators and managers who understand the dynamics of this new world we call the e-world to run the affairs of this nation.'
He revealed that Ghana's leaders have actively focused on planning in the past or done no planning at all.
'Project Ghana networks are more complex than the network and simulation models people are used to. Bandwidth is limited, information flow is very slow, protocols are outmoded, routers cannot handle needed capacity and most of the network cables are broken.
'Computers in Ghana appear to be using a very old operating system and cannot deal with modern processing and transactions.'
Ghana's internet infrastructure, he said, are in a constant mode of attack by viruses with its system administrators not being able to clean up the system for the past 50 years. 'Project Ghana in short is not working.
'Ghana is not going anywhere if a journey from Accra to Kumasi, which is supposed to take three hours, actually takes six hours. We are not going anywhere when only about four percent of our students can go to the universities.
'We are not going anywhere when people wait for the rain to start and throw their trash on the streets. Can we imagine a Japan type of tsunami hitting Accra?
'We are now in the e-world, the e-revolution. This may be the last revolution. To function well in this e-revolution, Ghana needs a new operating system. Ghana will need to bring in current and modern programmes that will make her function properly. The entire network of Ghana needs to be re-wired or perhaps be made completely wireless.'
Meanwhile, William Tevie, Director-General of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), in a speech, stated that Ghana was at the threshold of an ICT revolutionary take-off.
'NITA is rolling a very large government network that will be extended across all the 170 districts in Ghana. The phase, which has been completed, will enable all regional capitals have direct access to the internet through fibre optics while most districts covered will have access via WiMAX technology.
'The second phase will see fibre optics going to all the districts.'
He said NITA is evaluating bids and will soon appoint a registry solution provider to rebuild the gh registry.
'NITA will maintain a database of young entrepreneurs who are competent to take up sub-projects that the rollout will bring as a way of addressing part of the unemployment situation in Ghana.'
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Samuel Boadi
Quelle/Source: Modern Ghana, 29.10.2011
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