The Minister for Communications and Digitalisation (MoCD), Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has mandated the National Information Technology Agency (NITA); State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) and Office of the Head of Civil Service (OHCS) to as a matter of urgency work collaboratively to include Information and Communication Technology (ICT) adoption indicators as part of the Performance Appraisal Framework for all the Chief Directors and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in Ghana.
This, she said, would ensure that Heads of Public Institutions would be appraised on how much ICT adoption had taken place in the delivery of their mandate under the year of review.
The Minister observed that Chief Directors and CEOs were the key stakeholders in achieving a digital Public Sector, and, by extension, a digital Ghana, adding that their leadership and support in driving the needed reforms that come with the introduction and use of digital initiatives were key to advancing the government’s digital transformation agenda.
She made these comments today at the Technology Breakfast Meeting with Public Sector Executives, organized by NITA in partnership with SIGA and OHCS on the theme; “Governance Digitalisation: The Role of the Public Sector“
The Stakeholder engagement meeting bordered on 4 objectives including; To introduce decision makers within the public service to highlights of Ghana Digitalisation agenda; To get the decision makers to appreciate their level of the digitalisation framework and the role they play in ist realization; To Re-introduce the Smart WorkplaceTM (Government Virtual Office) and lastly, to Ensure the Cessation of the use of private email for government businesses.
She said the public sector ICT ecosystem must have the right architecture, security protocols, business continuity setup, maintenance culture and must be operated in accordance with best international practices.
She said Users and Managers of the system must also be guided by standards and specified operating protocols to minimize risk such as cyber-attack, data loss, breaches and leakages, system outages and the like.
To ensure that the public sector maintained the culture of continuity with official documents, the Minister stated that the government had partnered with Microsoft and E-Solutions, its local partner, to roll out the Smart Workplace™ platform – a virtual office for government workers to enable them efficiently in a secured digital space.
She said…“Smart Workplace™ provides the needed tools for staff communication, collaboration and meetings without participants being in the same space. With all these tools available, I am happy to announce that the use of personal emails for government business will no longer be permitted by the end of this year. Any government agency that has not yet been boarded should contact NITA to be onboarded before the end of the year. Please let me repeat, it will not be acceptable to use personal email to do official government business from next year”.
Also as part of the government’s effort to have robust digital infrastructure, she said that the Cabinet had decided that all MDAs/MMDAs must procure internet services from NITA and host their data and or disaster recovery sites at the National Data Centre.
She said with the support from the World Bank, the government was in the process of rolling out connectivity to all MMDAs, selected police stations, post offices and hospitals across the country.
According to her, NITA was also currently developing regulations, guidelines and protocols for Public Sector ICT and will engage the community of stakeholders in the coming days.
These regulations, she indicated, would then guide the use of ICT across the public sector, and additionally, Procurement of ICT applications, infrastructure and services should be done under the supervision of NITA and must have gone through the Public Procurement Authority (PPA).
She said these measures would go a long way to help minimize duplication, waste and reduce the cost of procuring these services.
The Minister also added that her outfit was working to establish an ICT regulatory agency with the aim to promote, and ensure a vibrant and competitive ICT ecosystem.
She outlined that, going forward, NITA would focus on the underlisted areas;
·Protection of public interest by monitoring and overseeing the implementation of our Digital Economy Policy which is currently being developed
·Monitoring compliance with contractual obligations to the government, users and other legal and regulatory requirements
·Establishing technical, safety and quality standards and monitoring compliance with them
·Imposing penalties for non-compliance
·Facilitating dispute resolution between players within the ecosystem
·Providing advice and counsel to the government on ICT policy (as Government CIO) and private sector.
She said the ministry would continue to support NITA to regulate the ICT sector in Ghana effectively, starting with the regulation of ICT usage in the public sector.
The Director General of SIGA, Ambassador Edward Boateng, in his remarks, noted that SIGA’s mandate was to ensure efficiency, good corporate governance and where applicable profitability of specified Entities and as such initiative that sought to inject efficiency to the operations of State Enterprises would be welcome by SIGA
According to him, digitalisation was the bedrock of society, hence it had become necessary for everyone especially Heads of Institutions and Agencies to leverage on the new emerging technologies to work smark for efficiency and productivity.
He mentioned that, digitalisation presents enormous benefits including Data Safety, Data Security, Simplification, Visibility , Mobility and lower operation cost.
He added that said digitalisation had the tendency of also increasing productivity, improving compliance and its outcomes and enhancing systems audit.
For his part, the Director- General for NITA, Mr, Richard Oyere-Fosu, said government had already invested over $500 million and counties to invest in the effort to digitalize the economy and the objective was to provide the needed infrastructure and enabling environment to provide the basic and needed framework to allow all other sectors within the public sector to digitize or automate the delivery of their mandate.
’‘As public sector executives, it was our duty to lead ICT in our various institutions to promote transparency, accountability, efficiency, and improve productivity“, he said.