Communications and Digitalisation Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful (5th left), with GDCL board members
The Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has inaugurated a nine-member governing board each for the Ghana Digital Centre Limited (GDCL) and Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT (AITI-KACE).
Inaugurating the GDCL board, the Minister urged the members to oversee the successful operationalization of Regional Innovation Centres (RICs) across the country to promote digital innovation and give the GDCL a nationwide reach in the process.
According to her, the GDCL, incorporated in July 2017, was established by the Government of Ghana, through the Ministry of Communications, to position Ghana as a regional digital hub to champion the development and management of Technology Parks and Digital Centres across Ghana to promote ICT-driven Economic growth.
The GDCL, she said, is mandated to provide world-class infrastructure and the enabling environment to attract and retain ICT and IT-enabled business process outsourcing companies to promote entrepreneurship and digital job creation for accelerated growth and fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship through the provision of platforms for business incubation, business acceleration as well as digital research and development programmes.
It is also expected to provide access to relevant ICT solutions for various sectors of the economy to cater for Ghana’s fast-changing ICT needs, through partnership with actors in both the public and private sectors.
She pointed out that the company had helped train over 15000 youth in various skills development courses, nurtured over 200 businesses and created over 5000 jobs.
“The company has also achieved 100 percent occupancy in providing office spaces in its affordable real estate and can boast of brand associations with institutions like the World Vision International, MTN Ayo Micro Insurance, VFS Premium Passport Application Centre, Docupro Limited, Government of Ghana’s Info 311 service, Innovaré Limited, among others,” she said.
AITI-KACE board
On the part of AITI-KACE, the Minister said the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT had built capacity for over 40,000 students in Ghana and other parts of the continent since inception.
“These high-end skilled personnel churned out are contributing their quota to their respective nations and in various fields in the public and private sectors,” she noted.
She added that the AITI-KACE had opened centres in Sunyani and Bolgatanga with the view to expanding the operations of the Centre to cater for the middle and northern belts of Ghana.
This, according to her, has yielded results, as the Bolgatanga Resource Centre, for instance, developed Ghana’s first fully-functional GNU/Linux Operating system –The Nyansapo OS (NOSS).
Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said the Centre had stepped up the development of several IT and e-government solutions to promote integration of ICT in the operations of the Public and Civil Services.
“The Centre has developed the e-Asset system for managing public assets from procurement to decommissioning, the e-leave app for light human resource management functions and the cashless e-Invoicing platform for processing of non-tax revenue and receipts/payments,” she said.
Others include e-learning platforms, data and web portal for government agencies, a real-time information-sharing platform for SMEs and an election collation and reporting platform.
AITI-KACE, she said, had rolled out a number of digital skills training programmes for the Civil Service, Public Services and the private sector to facilitate the integration of ICT in the operations of these sectors as a key component in Ghana’s digitalisation agenda.
The GDCL board is chaired by Prince Ofosu-Sefa, with Ernest Kumi, Kojo Amissah, Aloysius Adjetey, Sharon Dede Padi, Kusum Appiah, Benedicta Fosu-Mensah, Kwadjo Baah-Agyeman and Dr. Francis Blay as members.
The Board of AITI-KACE is chaired by Kwame Owusu, with Dr. Tony Bediako, Dr. Maria Lovelace Johnson, Eric Agyeman, Kesewaa Brown, Kwabena Afum-Dankwa, Dr. Collins Yeboah Afari, Francis K. Boachie and Farida Bedwei as the members.
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