SECOND PHASE OF INTERNET PROJECT COMMENCES (SPREAD)

The Government is carrying out the second phase of the National Communication Backbone Network to extend Internet connectivity to all districts in the country.
This is to position the country to become the preferred destination in Africa to access one billion dollars of the global Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) which is forecasted to be a $191.3 billion market by 2010.
Presently 20 companies have registered in the country and have created 3,000 jobs for people with basic Information Technology skills.
The Ministry of Communications and the Ghana Association of Software and IT Services Companies (GASSCOM) are determined to increase the number of jobs from BPO to 40,000 by the next four years.
The Vice-President, Mr John Mahama, made this known at the first GASSCOM international BPO conference in Accra yesterday.
Mr Mahama urged players in the communication industry to ensure sanity in the business environment by improving their services to meet international standards.
He explained that the potential in the service sector in this information age, when harnessed properly, could replace the commodities sector as the largest foreign exchange earner.
The speech of the Vice-President was read on his behalf by the Deputy Minister of Communications, Mr Gideon Quarcoo.
The Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said his ministry had taken advantage of the competitive telecommunications market to develop a collaborative robust ICT infrastructure backbone that would enable the private sector to have access to high speed Internet connectivity broadband at an affordable rate.
He said the government was facilitating the linking of Internet points of presence to all district capitals under the ICT backbone development programme being undertaken with support from Huawei Technologies of China.
Mr Iddrisu said the government had completed discussions for a grant of 150 million euros for the modernisation of equipment under the e-Ghana project that would promote the country as an attractive destination for both domestic entrepreneurs and foreign investors
Mr Iddrisu said the development of technology parks in free zone enclave was on course to aid the process of business incubation in the IT Enabled Services sectors (ITES).
He warned mobile phone service providers that they owed their customers a standard of care to protect their privacy and confidentiality of the information they shared or received by being part of their network.
He said the ministry would soon submit to the Cabinet a Data Protection and Privacy legislation for the regulation and protection of information.
Mr Iddrisu said the Ministry of Communications was also facilitating the development of additional legislation in the area of Data Protection and Intellectual Property so that investors in the area of data capturing and management would operate within the confines of international guidelines and rules.