Microsoft supports NITA to implement e-governance project
Mr Emmanuel Onyeje, General Manager of Microsoft Anglophone West Africa, has noted that Microsoft is enhancing its partnership with National Information Technology Agency (NITA) to improve upon information flow.
This, he said would lead to the creation of a national data centre for public administration.
The project, which commenced in 2006, has so far seen the completion of the first of three phases that is the network framework on which applications will be built and Microsoft’s presence is an added plus to the commencement of the second phase, which will take off later this year.
He said Microsoft is committed to boost Government’s e-governance project and is working very closely with NITA and other agencies to make the e-governance project a very successful one and see it come to life as quickly as possible.
Mr Onyeje was speaking to chief directors of ministries and heads of IT institutions and companies at the Ghana Executive Briefing in Accra.
The event brought people together to understand Microsoft’s role in the country and how it wants to move the partnership with Government forward.
Mr Onyeje said Microsoft would provide software and solutions to protect the country’s assets.
“For example, we are now creating assets in the oil sector. We need to protect those assets for the organisations and Microsoft has solutions to that. In healthcare as well, which is a very important aspect of the e-governance project, Microsoft will be providing technology that can help health officials in the remotest part of the country save lives.
“Imagine you are creating oil or water pipelines for the whole country. You can protect those pipes from destruction with our modern software which will have sensors, cameras and satellite technologies monitoring these pipes — and can even detect a possible attack on them.
We have the solutions and are also ready to train the security forces to react within 30 minutes,” he said.
Mr William Tevie, Director General of NITA urged the software giant to build the capacity and skills of the users of their software locally.
He said the second phase of the e-governance project would be the installation of relevant applications on the network, which would include IT Directory, emails, and a series of other applications that would make it possible for the ministries and government departments to collaborate.
“The most important thing is to build the network, and since that has been done we will be laying the applications on them very soon,” he said.
Mr Tevie said there are plans to also implement the e-parliament, e-services, e-justice, e-health, e-immigration and other systems as soon as possible to make information accessible to all.
NITA is the ICT project-implementation arm of Government, and it has since its inception built the foundational ICT architecture, working with a $40million World Bank loan, $150million Chinese EXIM Bank loan ($30million which is concessionary), and another €37million concessional loan from the Danish Government.
NITA, leveraging Government’s 30 per cent stake in Vodafone, used part of the National Fibre Optic Backbone in the possession of Vodafone to build Multiple Layer Switch and WIMAX networks to connect the ministries, departments and agencies at the national and regional levels in the first phase of the e-government project.
Source: GNA