National Information Technology Agency Board inaugurated
A nine-member Board of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) has been inaugurated to support the Ministry of Communications and NITA to ensure the systematic deployment of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the country.
It is to monitor NITA to facilitate the implementation of Ghana’s e-Government Platform and Strategy under the e-Ghana Project, which seeks to interconnect all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s), as well as Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA’s) to ensure efficiency in the delivery of governance.
It is also to provide strategic direction to empower NITA to pursue the management of the country’s ICT resources on a unified platform to eliminate the tendency of MDA’s and MMDA’s managing Information Technology (IT) resources independently and in an incompatible manner resulting in waste, redundancy and unnecessary duplication.
Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Communications, who inaugurated the Board in Accra on Friday, told members: “You therefore, have an immediate challenge to develop a robust and reliable e-application system because the success of Ghana’s ICT for development policy goals and initiatives depends largely on how best MDA’s can utilize shared services infrastructure and systems to perform common functions.”
Mr Iddrisu reminded the Board to monitor NITA to advise the Ministry of the Action Plan under the Electronic Transaction Act, which include the setting up of the domain name registry, Certifying Unit, development of e-Payment gateway and government web portal and the actualization of electronic signatures to give authenticity to electronic records.
He challenged the Board to guide NITA to streamline its activities to ensure effective delivery and facilitation of services to generate revenue and eventually wean itself of the consolidated budget.
Mr Iddrisu reinforced the government’s directive that no MDA should engage in any ICT related procurement and allied development without recourse to NITA, the Audit Service and Ministry of Communications to eliminate redundancy and duplication.
“We must harmonise IT usage to improve governance arrangements for the delivery of IT services in the country”, he said.
He also stressed the need for horizontal collaboration between NITA and agencies under the Ministry, such as the National Communications Authority, the Ghana Investment Fund for Telecommunications and the Ghana Post to ensure effective implementation of government’s ICT policies and strategies.
Dr Nii Naaku Quaynor, Chairman of the Board of NITA, who spoke on behalf of members, expressed appreciation to government for the unique opportunity to serve the country in building a new NITA.
Mr William Tevie, Acting Director General of NITA, said the Agency was working to deploy different kinds of projects in the ICT space for government to ensure efficiency in the delivery of services.
Mr Tevie mentioned Government Data Backbone to connect all 170 MMDA’s, e-Government applications and intra government communications, Enterprise Architecture and e-Ghana Interoperability Framework amongst others as some of the projects NITA had been developing.
Source: GNA