Communications Minister commissions new ICT infrastructure in Eastern Region

A centre to provide business services and community development to remote communities in the country has been inaugurated in Koforidua in the Eastern Region.

The initiative is also aimed at providing universal access to Information communication technology (ICT) applications for accelerated growth and development through reliable and prompt availability of information.

Inaugurating the project, Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah said similar information centres will be replicated in all the ten regions to link up to the business processing outsourcing centre(BPO) located at the Kwame Nkrumah interchange.

The community information centre, according to the minister is being established by the ministry in some districts in the country through its partner Huawei.

''This CIC is a component of the e-government platform project...we are deploying twenty one of these enhanced community information centres across the country with the view to break the digital divide,'' he stated.

The initiative is to extend ICT infrastructure and communication access accompanied by the requisite human resource capacity building.

Speaking to Joy News on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah explained the initiative is to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas and further support economic activities in rural communities.

''This is to provide opportunities for our youth particularly those who have difficulties in acquiring their own sets of computers and even smart phones and all that. Through this communal facilities they would be able to try their hands on ICT gadgets, build their capacity and out of that we can have ICT engineers, software developers''.

''We are also deepening the business process outsourcing concept in Ghana with the aim to deepen the process of companies outside the country giving outsourcing part of their non-core businesses,'' the minister explained.

According to him, the idea of the CIC ''is not just to centralize the BPO system in the centre of Accra...we want to diffuse it...so it is our view that over the next five years enhanced community information centres including the regional innovation centres will serve as centres to engage the business process outsourcing endeavours in the country''.

The services provided by the community information centres are through the use of computers, fax facilities and reliable internet services.

''Over time some of them may even acquire the skills and even from their bedrooms they are able to offer such services to their client abroad through internet-enabled computers, fax facilities among others all with the view to reversing brain drain but also exporting the capacity of our brain...The Ghanaian youth is very very versatile [and] has a enormous potential. This is why we are investing heavily in the ICT sector'' . Dr. Omane Boamah noted.

He added that ''the construction of the CIC's would need adequate bandwith because without adequate bandwith we are going to have an unstable internet.

"That is why over the past few years we have been deploying fibre both wireless and also the fixed broadband itself and that includes the 780 kilometre Eastern corridor fibre optic project which runs from Ho to Bawku with a link from Tamale to Yendi running through Bimbilla, Nankpaduri.

 The Chinese ambassador to Ghana, Her Excellency Sun Baohong said the project has been successful following the good working relationship between the two countries and the deepening of its bi-lateral trade.