RE: GIDC Actions on Late President Atta Mills’ Call on Diaspora Professionals.

The Ministry of Environment Science and Technology (MEST) headed by Maj. Rtd. Dr. Ahmed Mustapha on recommendation of the President Prof., Evans Fifi Atta Mills are supposed to meet the representatives of the Ghana International Development Consortium (GIDC), on the 27th of September if all necessary arrangements are reached. The Diaspora professionals under the name GIDC, in 2011 sent a letter to the President showing their readiness to provide a technological solution that can solve the ongoing e- government problems facing the country. On receipt of the letter, the late President Evans Fifi Atta Mills on the 16th of July 2012 directed Maj. Rtd. Dr. Ahmed Mustapha who is the deputy minister for Environment Science and Technology and Dr. Kortatsi who is the directed of MEST to contact GIDC for further discussions. The experts of GIDC and their partners are coming down to fulfill the promise they made to the president.

The Consortium is made up of some of the nation's professionals in the Diaspora with the sole aim and objective of identifying and addressing Ghana's developmental challenges facing the country.

In a statement published by GNA on Monday, 16 July 2012, the Consortium proposed an integrated “All in One System“solution, which includes a modern voting technology that can address the so-called voter identification and verification problem in Ghana. The proposed software will address also the challenges facing the nation in the area of census and statistics. This system will provide analysis needed for effective implementation of government's policies and programmes.

In the statement it said,” a comprehensive integrated e-government technology solution is needed to address the nation's residential, voting and data gathering for effective and meaningful policy-making on a long-term basis”.

“The Consortium has notified the Electoral Commission (EC) and Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in separate letters since December 2011 that, after following the 2010 National Census of Ghana and the challenges encountered in that exercise, and after monitoring the ongoing debate over the Bio and his brother Metric Voter Registration in Ghana, the GIDC and its German partners are prepared to offer the country a sophisticated integrated e-government system technology to help address the nation's problems once and for all.”

The Ghanaian professionals are of the opinion that, when the government has the political will power to integrate this sophisticated integrated e-government system technology, it would help maintain the requisite records and other pertinent information needed to formulate national policies, and to conduct fraudulent-free elections. That same technology as requested by the late President Evans Atta Mills, will make it possible for any president to sit in his office and get to know all development projects and data about every district or village in the country. That was his wish.

In another development, a letter dated 14.07.2012 which was sent to the Dr. Kortatsi of MEST by the president of GIDC, he stated emphatically that, when this system is implemented, it will undoubtedly save Ghana from spending millions of dollars in the coming years to purchase any sort of instruments for Biometric registration, National Identification registration excises, or what the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) will have to spend in going round again collecting data for census and statistic purpose. With a better national registration policy in place, you need not to be going from house to register anybody. It is the duty for the people to come to you to register. He added.

The Consortium pointed out that, with such sophisticated integrated e-government system in place, not only would the needs of the EC and GSS be met, but also the President of Ghana would have at its disposal on a timely basis, the relevant information needed to make informed policy decisions direct in his office.

The statement said: “It is assumed that, all the names of the 78 government stakeholders including the10 none governmental organizations which was submitted by GSS to the Ghanaian professionals in 2011, in their view, are supposed to have the universal adherence and the responsibility to build their capacities to produce timely, credible and relevant information's to meet the growing statistical demand of the country”.

The consortium has series of correspondence to that effect with the Deputy Minister Maj. Rtd. Dr. Ahmed Mustapha and Dr. Kortatsi to arrange for their coming to Ghana to meet the government institutions and stakeholders and to present the software to them.

Expected stakeholders are as follows:
a) the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS),
b) the Electoral Commissioner (EC),
c) the Ghana Police Service,
d) the Ministry of Interior,
e) the Ghana Passport Service,
f) the Ministry for Immigration,
g) the Ghana Government Printing Press,
h) the Ghana Post and Telecom,
i) the Ministry of Education,
j) the Ministry of Health,
k) the Ministry of Death and Birth,
l) the Ghana Town Planning Committee,
m) the ministry of Local Government,
m) the Accra Metropolitan Assembly
n) the representatives of the political parties
o) the Press.
The honorable Minister Maj. Rtd. Dr. Ahmed Mustapha and Dr. Kortatsi have showed their willingness to corporate with the Ghanaian professionals in the Diaspora to come out with a final solution to this overdue Census, Statistics and other technological development problems facing the country. The Minister Maj. Rtd. Dr. Ahmed Mustapha was quick to put across when they met the representatives of GIDC in Ghana, some development projects of greater interest and wishes GIDC experts to consider them in their programs and come out with solutions.

The representatives of GIDC made it emphatically clear that, based on the experience and the track record of their German partners, they are confident that the nation's sophisticated integrated e-government system needs, can be met to help the current and future governments developmental challenges of Ghana. The Ghanaian professionals are therefore ready to come to Ghana on the 27th of September to demonstrate this to the government institutions. The director of the Environment Science and Technology, Dr. Kortatsi is working round the clock to arrange for the meeting.

The Consortium is thankful to Maj. Rtd. Dr. Ahmed Mustapha and Dr. Kortasti for without delay responding to the work that was entrusted to them by the late President Atta Mills. The president of GIDC said this gesture of the late President shows how he is determined to involve all the Ghanaian professionals in the Diaspora in search for lasting solutions to some of the developmental and social problems which the country is entangled with, and they are not going to fail the country provided the organizers and the invited government institutions and stakeholders are not going to fail them.