Cyber Security Fund Part Of 2019 Budget

Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta has revealed that as part of measures to fight the growing cyber fraud in the country’s digital space, the government will be launching a fund in the 2019 budget.

Addressing participants at a workshop at the National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in Accra, Mr Ofori Atta said the responsibility to ensure a safer digital Ghana is on all stakeholders as Ghana progresses with electronic initiatives including the mobile money interoperability, digital address system, and other electronic payment systems which are going on.

He said, “For the government there needs to be a responsibility to protect the citizens and that’s the challenge, the question is who pays for it but clearly there needs to be a shared responsibility in this regard between the users and the government…we will like to launch a cyber-security fund which we have to seed it to show the seriousness.”

He noted that statistics from the Cybercrime Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) indicates that, in 2016 Ghana lost about $25.8 million, with US$8.4 million in the form of business compromises.

“The 2017 estimates put the loss at $ 69 million, a very significant loss” he added.

Estimates from the Cybercrime Unit further shows that as at August 2018, Ghana lost $97 million due to Cybercrime, this Ken Ofori Atta noted is an indication of increasing cybercrime incidence.

“I don’t think I have an option, but to really create that fund so that, we can really begin to get creative on protecting our future and making sure that the whole idea of Ghana becoming the regional hub for trade, tourism and information technology (IT) is then backed by our commitment to protect investors and ourselves,” the minister said.

He insisted that the amount of money the country expects to spend in digitizing the economy should justify the need to find resources as required.