Ghana ICT Policy and Plan Development Committee

The National ICT Policy and Plan Development Committee had a meeting with the State Enterprise Foundation on 24th October 2002 as part of the National Consultative exercise aimed at developing an ICT-driven socio-economic development policy and plan.

Prof Dzidonu stated that this first meeting with the SEC was a Pre-Framework meeting and stressed on the fact that ICT was about socio-economic development and the argument was on ICT to facilitate this development. He expected more meetings to be held in the course of time. He further stated that some selected stakeholders including SEC would be invited to debate on the Framework document when it comes out by mid November (this was a tentative date).

After extensive discussions on the Framework document, a Policy document would come out which would be considered a forerunner to the Plan which will be in use for many years. This document would be generic and feasible to be able to adapt to changes. If the Framework comes out by mid-November, it was expected that the Policy document which would be distilled from the Framework document would be out in January, given the time it would take for it to go through the Parliamentary select committee on Communication and the Cabinet, about 6 months period would then be needed to formulate the Plan for ICT in Ghana and then Structures would be put in place for the implementations of the Plan.

The consultative process in the public sector was aimed at a one to one meeting with the Government Ministers to get a buy-in, the committee would also meet with His Excellency the President or the Vice President, Chief Directors, Political Parties, Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications etc.

In the Private sector, the committee had already met with the Private Enterprise Foundation who would coordinate the members of the foundation for the committee to meet with them.

Mr. Frank Ocran stated that it was a welcome meeting and considered it as one of the pre-framework discussions. He offered to enlighten the committee on what the SEC was all about.

The cardinal responsibility of the SEC was to play an oversight role over prescribed bodies. They also play an advisory role as stated in the PNDC Law 170, they are to ensure and enhance the capacity of the State Owned Enterprises to be effective and efficient in the performance of their duties. They were also to enhance government efforts and contribute to the National economy by advising government on how to handle the State Owned Enterprises.

They play a major role in enhancing the capacity of the Divestiture Implementation Program, State Owned Enterprises, etc. Thus they are constantly in touch with the government to be more effective and efficient in the performance of their duties.

They on their part have devised a system for ‘performance evaluation’ for the SOE’s to sign a performance contract. They have a structured reporting system. Their gathering of information was very slow as they had to go in person to the SOE’s to collect information. ICT would therefore play a major role in reducing the time wasting by enabling them to collate information right in their offices.
As they are in constant touch with the SOE’s, it should be possible by now to monitor their activities without going directly to them. For a start, the SEC had put in place Local Area Network, to be able to communicate internally with each other. If a National backbone was available, they could then be linked up with them to be able to communicate with all the SOE’s.
He also stated that over the period they have acquired expertise in the performance management of SOE’s, ICT should be able to help them sell on t he net the skills they have acquired.
They were happy to become part of the ICT for development process, they hoped to be able to learn and share in this process.
On the question of how many SOE's were available, Mr. Frank Ocran responded that SOE’s which have contractual agreements with them are 32, there were however other SOE’s like the Agricultural Development Bank which were not under the SEC.
Prof. Dzidonu asked if there was no statutory obligation for all SOE’s to be part of the SEC and the response was that:
- not every SOE was under any obligation to fall under them. For example the Financial Institutions spread all over the country. Government wholly owns partially subvented agencies. According to a bill going to parliament, all institutions must have their business aspects registered with by the SEC.

-The National Renewal Programme which was directly under the office of the President coordinates and focuses the minds of all reforms going on in the public sector. ICT could therefore be used to make NRP the center of ICT.

Prof. Dzidonu suggested that the SEC should organize the Public Sector Organisations to meet with the ICT committee. The committee would send a formal letter to the SEC to request for a meeting with the PSO under the auspices of the SEC.
Prof. Dzidonu stated that the deployment of ICT was not a guarantee that the economy would grow as had been established. There was however some ‘critical success factors’ which needed to be looked at to create the opportunity for ICT to act as the Enabler for the socio-economic development of the country.
Mr. Frank Ocran stated that based on his understanding there was a big difference between hardware and software, whiles thinking about ICT, we must ask ourselves what do we need ICT for? What are we doing that we need ICT to enhance? We must know what exactly we need it for before going in for it to enhance it.

-He Believed that Ghana was already overburdened with various types of ICT which we did not need or know how to use.

-He also stated the problem of Telephoning in the country, the fact that land lines were difficult to use when calling mobile phones, the cost of telephoning in the country which was too high was another factor to be looked at and the fact that the telephone facility though in existence were out of order most of the time.

-He went on further to state that It was too expensive to do business in Ghana by phone. A small country of about 18 million had over 200 trunk lines, boundaries on telephone must be almost free for people to be able to do business on phone and create money for the government. If this was not done Ghanaians would telling themselves that they were not ready to become part of the global world.He ended by saying that even making people literate in Computers and knowing how to type alone could turn the country around.
Prof. Dzidonu remarked on the brilliant ideas put across so far and stated that for this process to be a success the will at the government level must be there, the sensitization and letting people know that ICT could possibly help improve the socio-economic development of the country must be done.

-The soft part of the problem which include Motivation, work attitude, low morale are all part of the reasons Ghana was not moving fast with new ideas etc. Some other Critical Success Factors must also be looked at although this may cost a lot of money.
At this point Prof. Dzidonu requested the SEC in collaboration with the SOE’s to make a submission leaning on how they thought the deployment of ICT could help the Public Sector and the SOE’s.
Mr. Frank Ocran mentioned the fact that the staff of the SEC was doing very well but they were not being compensated properly. Remuneration between the private and public sector was very insulting. Even though the brains of Public Servants were always being tapped for example in this ICT consultative process for the benefit of both the public and private sectors, the Public Sectors were most of the time not compensated.

-He also stated that close to about 400 subverted agencies do not have oversight agencies, they do not belong under any particular government agency, they are therefore moved around most of the time by the various Ministries. The NIRP could help to organize them into groups

-He especially mentioned to the committee not to put too much strain on the SEC without any consideration and also no financial burden should be placed on them.

Prof. Dzidonu agreed to this and requested Mr. Frank Ocran to chair and coordinate the affair, he mentioned that the committee would provide all other materials needed for the presentation. Mr. Ocran agreed to this and expressed the SEC’s desire to ordinate the SOE’s, share and contribute to the development of the Nation.
Mr. Frank Ocran went further to mention the the Public Sector Accounting which was available in most pars of the world, in this all public sectors were linked up and information could be derived from any location from the same source. Thus the Public Sector could pay into the Network.

Mr. Ronny Apaloo stated that the discussion must be focused on how this country could be developed socio-economically./ Priorities must be set, outline the drivers etc. ICT was important, we must come clearly on what Ghana as a country would like to use ICT for, our objective, strategy, structure and who are the people being targeted. The schools curriculum must be aimed at training for specific areas that would be beneficial, these are some of the areas to be looked at. For example if schools were having problems then the issue of training of teachers must be looked at, focus was therefore very important.

The Private and the Public Sectors must be viewed side by side and not separetly, since they work side by side. He further stated that we must “focus on what we think can be the drivers. It is important for a socio-economic survey to be performed in which part of the economy was likely to peform because success begets success and failure begets more failure”.

He also encouraged the committee and stated that they have a big role, he was glad to be told of the optimistic view, he however told the committee to work from the scenical view.

Mr. Frank Ocran advised the committee to desist from procastination and strike whiles the iron was still hot. For example the Banks could all be linked together in a small country like Ghana. Electronic Money should be encouraged to fish out the crooks from the systems since it would be very difficult to steal money and not get caught Electronically. This he stated was making Ghana very uncompetitive.

He stated that “Human beings like assets is not what they have on them but their potential to make money”.

He stated the problem the country was currently facing about the use of Identity Cards. ICT could enable CEPS to know which people were paying tax and those not, the leaking of the National Coffers could be stopped, it was only going on because there was no basis for checking all that. These sectors could be structured and the cost benefit analysis of the country must be looked at.

At the end of the discussion, it was agreed that the question facing us as a country were summed in the 4 W’s, that is

- Where we were are now
- Why we are where we are
- Where we want to go and
- When we want to get there
Prof. Dzidonu requested a write-up from VRA of some of the specifics they would like to see in the Framework document, he assured VRA that every item received would be treated as confidential and a disclaimer will be put on all questionnaires.

-Voltacom agreed to this request. At this point, Prof. Dzidonu thanked VRA for their time and contribution and they also thanked us for the brief and wished us well in the performance of our duties.