The Advisory Council comprises of policy makers, regulators, network operators, service providers, universities, civil society, and associations of consumers, private companies and the Chamber of Commerce.
The ICT Advisory Council was created by the government on the recommendations of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) to ensure a participatory approach for the development of the ICT sector. The Council shall formulate ICT objectives and implementation plans, develop national ICT standards and guidelines and monitor the implementation of policy plans and evaluating the results.
Sierra Leone being a member of ECOWAS adopted the Supplementary Act entitled the Harmonization of Policies and the Regulatory Framework for ICT on the 19th January 2007 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
In his opening remarks at the landmark event, Chairman of NATCOM Siray Timbo said that the launch of the Council exemplifies the magnitude of our plan to close the digital divide and ensure that the next generation of Sierra Leoneans are well equipped to fully participate in an IT society.
He added that the launching shows our commitment to investing in the foundations of our future prosperity and underlines our belief that ICT is the central theme in our national development policies and is indeed an engine for economic growth.
Timbo maintained that the steps taken by Sierra Leone to be part of the ICT global society is evident in the signing of the ACE fibre optic agreement in June last year.
Formally launching the Council, President Koroma stated that “my government strongly believes that an ICT system will ensure good governance, promote effective and efficient private sector business, support human resource capacity building, develop health service delivery and education and build synergy between the media and the civil society”.
He added that in the 1990s Sierra Leone was unable to participate fully in the regional ICT infrastructure facilities because “our nation was not linked with other submarine cable serving the Atlantic coast line in Africa”.
President Koroma maintained that as a result connectivity between Sierra Leone and other countries relies exclusively on expensive satellite communication with limited high capacity bandwidth.
He reiterated that “we have succeeded in encouraging entrepreneurs to invest in the areas such as Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication, CDMA and Y MAX, the issuance of license to these companies he maintained has tremendously improved voice telephony with current mobile penetration standing at 35%.
Dr Koroma stated that government has also given license to 31 FM Radio Stations and have also corporatized SLBC which has helped in the dissemination of timely information to the populace.
Presently he said, internet penetration for both dial up and broadband services stands at 0.3%, adding that the E- government readiness survey conducted by the Vice President’s Office, MIC with the support of UNDP highlighted a weak diffusion of ICT services and access particularly in the public sector. This he noted is clearly a severe limitation on our ability to harness ICT for our socio economic development.
“It is with this view that I gave directives to the MIC to form a National ICT Task Force which was charged with the responsibility of formulating a national ICT policy for the country”.
The President averred that the vision of the ICT policy is to develop a knowledge base information society with a vibrant ICT sector.
He pointed out that the Policy highlighted the need for service providers to improve network performance, establishment of Standards Bureau for ICT sector, creation of centre for ICT intelligence, develop a national security framework and setting up of ICT Advisory Council.
“ICTs should be integral to our attempt at transforming this country”, he said, adding that the possibilities are great the benefits are immense.
The Minister of Information and Communications (MIC) Alhaji Ibrahim Kargbo said that government recognized the need to modernize ICT in the country. He gave a brief background of how the ICT policy started and what Sierra Leone stands to gain from it.
In her presentation on ICT Policy implementation and guidelines, ECOWAS ICT Policy Consultant Millicent Hamilton Hazeley said that the Council shall supervise the preparation of the 10 implementation plans and oversee their timely implementation in partnership with stakeholders identified as accountable stakeholders for the priority activities.
ECOWAS Director of Transportation and Communications David Kamara said Sierra Leone is the first country of ECOWAS to develop such a laudable policy. He assured that ECOWAS will support Sierra Leone in the implementation of the policy.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Abibatu Kamara
Quelle/Source: Awoko, 12.01.2011
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