Senior Government Officials To Do Computer Courses

The Minister for Transport and Communication, Hon. Felix Owusu-Adjapong has revealed that as part of the NPP government's plans to enhance Information and Communication Technology in Ghana, all senior government officials have been asked to undertake computer literacy programmes that will make them computer literate within the next six months.

"We would want them to be able to use the internet in enhancing the communication machinery of government" he said. The minister was delivering a keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 3rd African Telecom Summit. He decried the inadequacy of telecommunication infrastructure in Africa and particularly Ghana and said the situation is constraining the viability of many enterprises.

He blamed this condition on inadequacy of policies, weak regulatory environment as well as the lack of resources for infrastructure development. The summit has brought together, 16 ministers of communication from other African countries as well as stakeholders in the information and communication industry.

Hon. Owusu-Adjapong also mentioned that Africans must be particularly concerned about the continuous dependence on Europe for the transit of much intra-African telecom traffic in spite of the significant improvement in the telecom service delivery achieved in many parts of the continent over the past decade. He lamented that four years after Ghana had gone great lengths to establish a favourable framework including the creation of a regulatory agency to ensure a level playing field for the private telecom operators, the results in promoting access to telecom services nationally falls below our expectations.

But one of the priorities of the NPP government as he said, is to lay great emphasis on human capacity building in information and communication technology skills. In view of this, pilot programmes to promote access to computers in schools will be re-packaged as national programmes to be implemented in phases.

Also present at the summit were the former Communications Minister Hon. John Mahama, Hon. Edward Salia and Ekow Spio Garbrah. The summit has the theme, "Universal Access and ICT in Africa - Strategies for effective development" and co-sponsored by African Telecom Think Tank (ATTT). Even though many delegates are yet to arrive and register, over 200 have so far registered. On the whole, some 300 people mainly from Africa are expected to patronise the summit.

The Telecom Summit which began some three years ago and initiated by Spectrum International, an infrastructure management consultancy has become an annual one due to the increasing demand by participating parties for a more regular summit since it is the only Telecom Summit organised by Africans in Africa. The first summit was held in Accra in March 1999 and attracted over 250 delegates from over 35 countries as well as 20 sponsors and exhibitors. It was under the theme, "Beyond Privatisation - what are the realities of effective Telecom delivery?".

That summit provided the platform for the launching of the African Telecom Think Tank, a group of African Telecom Professionals committed to the development of telecommunication in Africa. Since then, the group has continued to make significant contributions in human resource development, policy and regulatory issues, financing and technological improvement in Africa Telecom.

Consequently, another summit was organised the following year under the theme "Convergence and Globalisation: the impact on African Telecommunications". That one too provided a unique opportunity for participants to discuss the technological changes in telecommunications in this era of convergence and how Africa should respond. It attracted over 60 leading Telecom operators and suppliers from Africa and beyond.

At the end of this summit, participants issued a communique urging the organizers, Spectrum International and the Ministry of Communications (Ghana) to ensure that the African Telecom Summit remains an annual activity. This is because the summit is so far, the only Telecom Conference in Africa organized for Africa by Africans in Africa and also the only one that brings together, Ministers, Policy Makers, Regulators, Operators, Investors and Consumers to dialogue in one forum without excessive protocol.

Participants also called on African governments to put in place, very strong regulatory frameworks to ensure level playing fields in their Telecom markets in order to attract the much needed investment and human resource. The call was also made on the organizers to invite more regulators, operators, ministers, women, civil society and regional & sub-regional economic groupings such as the OAU, ECOWAS, SADC to subsequent summits and also suggested that the next summit should dwell more on investment and finance as well as mobile cellular solutions for Africa.

This year's summit has been designed accordingly to take care of these concerns. One highlight of the summit would be an open forum for invited Ministers to address the delegates on the investment opportunities available in their respective countries.