THE Ministry of Communications is to acquire a modern radar that will be capable of tracking storms and processing information on hazardous weather.
Currently, there is only one secondary civilian radar which was installed at the Kotoka International Airport, used only to track aircraft in the country’s airspace.
This was made known by the Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, when he paid a working visit to the offices of the Ghana Meteorological Agency in Accra.
He said the new radar would improve the work of the agency and move it to a stage where it would anticipate and prevent damages and lost of lives and property before disasters occurred.
Mr Iddrisu said it was unacceptable that in this era of development, the meteorological agency was still using manual paper work and analogue equipment, instead of computers to forecast weather information.
The ministry, he said, had, therefore, allocated 10 computers to the agency to reduce the paper work in the official activities of weather forecasting.
Mr Gideon Quarcoo, Deputy Minister of Communication, who accompanied the minister, said the ministry was studying the possibilities of introducing technologies for seeding clouds with silicon iodide crystal to increase rainfall in the country for agricultural production.
The Director-General of Meteorological Agency, Mr Michael Mawutor Tanu, informed the ministers that the Ghana Cocoa Board had expressed its readiness to partner the agency to provide weather forecast for farmers in the country.
He, however, deplored the attitude of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) for withholding the 10 per cent landing fee from aircraft which was due the Meteorological Agency for providing information on aircraft landings.
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