Ghana has made progress - Kan-Dapaah

Accra, May 2, GNA - Ghana has not done badly in the development of Information and Communication Technology in the past five years, Outgoing Communications Minister Albert Kan-Dapaah said on Tuesday. Opening a two-day workshop to discuss ways on using Information and Communication Technology and Information Technology to enable Services to improve Business Competitiveness and Enhance the Country's Economic Growth, Mr Kan-Dapaah said the Government had put in place a transparent pro-business policy and regulatory framework to grow the telecommunication sector.

The country's policy blueprint drawn for the development of ICT and the Telecom Sector, he said, had met global standards and was highly acclaimed by stakeholders.

This had enabled the country to witness spectacular growth in infrastructure development across the length and breadth of the 10 regions, enabling the Telecom Sector to collectively achieve tele-density growth of over 1,200 per cent within a period of five years.

The total number of telephone subscribers has risen in the past five years to three million compared to 218,000 in 2000. It is expected that by the end of 2006 the customer numbers would be 4.5 million subscribers.

Despite the rapid expansion in telecommunications, Mr Kan-Dapaah said the quality of services delivered to consumers remained an ever-present spectre haunting the telecom industry. He said the inadequacy of the regulatory authority in the management of interconnection difficulties among the existing operators had compounded the problem.

Mr Kan-Dapaah said the country's efforts in building those essential platforms had met with the international community approval, saying that the 2003/4 authoritative World Economic Forum tracked Ghana in its global information technology report, which measured the degree of preparation of a nation to participate in and benefit from ICT development ranked Ghana 64 in the world.

This has also encouraged the World Bank to support the establishment of an ICT Park at the Free Zone Enclave in Tema to support industrial growth and technology development.

Moreover, the United Nations has selected Ghana for a project on International Partnerships on New and Emerging Technologies for sustainable Development. The project will establish a comprehensive Science and Technology Park to promote Research and Development in collaboration with the universities and research institutions in the country.

In the area of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Information Technology enabled services, Mr Kan-Dapaah said the Ministry of Communications would develop the sector to position the country as a prime destination in the West Africa Sub Region.

Government has envisaged capturing five per cent of the global market for the Business Process Outsourcing and to earn about 1.75 billion dollars by the end of 2007.

Mr Kan-Dapaah said this would be done by encouraging the development of local ICT businesses and setting up five ITES training centres in collaboration with the private sector and promoting linkages between teachers and students and IT/ITES businesses.

Presenting the findings of a survey on the development of the Sector, Mr Anupam Prakash, Lead Consultant, Hewitt Associates, said Ghana had the potential to maximize gains from BPO/ITES. But this could only be achieved when the country adopted a set of uniform ITES skills assessment, training and certification programme. There is also the need to review the educational syllabus at school and tertiary levels with focus on building the foundation for the implementation of ITES at the national level.