$100m Needed To Fight Cybercrime — Ursula Owusu

Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful

The Communications Minister has revealed the government needs about $100 million this year to implement cybersecurity strategies to curb cybercrime in the country.

Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said the $100 million will fund security agencies and the judiciary with logistics to investigate and prosecute cybercrime offences to secure Ghana’s cyberspace.

“We need about $100 million for the first year alone to implement our cybersecurity strategy and about $250 million over five years. Our security agencies and judiciary must be equipped to investigate and prosecute cybercrime offences,” she stated at the Meet-The-Press series today.

The Minister added that technology is growing rapidly and the country must, therefore, develop a cadre of intelligent, hardworking cyber analysts and specialists to support the system and network security operations.

She stated that the Communication Service Tax (CST) will provide basic funding to fight cybercrime.

“We all have a part to play to sustainably fund the cybersecurity initiatives for our own benefit and this CST increase is geared towards supporting some of the initiatives the government is putting in place to protect our digital infrastructure for our collective peace of mind,” she said.

She acknowledged that CST alone cannot provide all the needed funding for cybersecurity strategies but a good first step towards curbing cybercrime.

---Myjoyonline