Take advantage of ICT to produce cheap energy – John Mahama advises

The Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has called on policy makers to take advantage of ICT to produce energy at a cheaper cost to feed industries and also reduce the cost of importing energy at high cost.

The development of the ICT infrastructure which is currently on-going, the vice-president noted, would facilitate information-sharing in real time that would help build confidence and openness in the oil and gas operations, including monitoring of volumes being produced and transported, he said.

Mr Mahama who made the call in Accra at the third Graphic Business Forum organised by the Graphic Communications Group Limited, said given the extensive gas deposits in Ghana, taking advantage of ICT would help boost industry and give it the capacity to employ more people.

He said it has been noted that the ICT dimension was frequently absent from private sector development strategies and that policy makers and small and micro enterprise owners in developing countries were not harnessing those new possibilities to the fullest.

“There is the need therefore, to establish close links between ICTs and Private Sector Development in order to make ICT a powerful tool for improving the competitiveness of the private sector,” he emphasised.

Touching on the oil and gas industry, Mr Mahama submitted that the government was encouraging the development of Offshore Broadband Network to extend optic fibre infrastructure to cover all the oil fields and areas under exploration.

Source: Daily Graphic