Ghana IT agency, Microsoft to collaborate in delivering services to citizens
The National Information Technology Agency (NITA) is collaborating with Microsoft to develop the capacity of the government to use ICT in delivering services to citizens.
This was disclosed to the Ghana News Agency by Mr William Tevie, Director General of NITA after holding discussions with Mr Ali Famwawi, Vice President of Microsoft in Accra.
“I am very happy that Microsoft is collaborating with NITA,” Mr Tevie said.
He said NITA is adopting an open software policy for government network in addition to procurement of volume product licenses for government agencies from Microsoft to reduce cost of ICT at the Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) .
He said provision would also be made for the MDAs which are using other open source software on the network.
“NITA is on course to expanding the network to cover the whole country by 2015,” Mr Tevie added.
According to him, the second phase of the expansion of the government network is currently ongoing to bring on board 60 new base stations to add to the 30 existing ones.
“A national data centre in Accra and a secondary data centre in Kumasi are also due to be completed by the end of year.”
Mr Famwawi, who was in the country for the launch of the Hope City Project in Accra said Microsoft is going to collaborate with NITA to train government officials, build the technical capacity of NITA to support government ICT and to help Parliament with ICT solutions and training.
He said Microsoft is working on delivering unique identifiers and assist NITA to deploy MS SharePoint collaboration tools to enhance productivity within the MDAs.
Other areas being considered are skilled support for government business.
NITA is the government IT agency responsible for ensuring MDAs use ICT in government business and at costs that are minimal.
NITA has rolled out a government fibre optic network around the Ministries enclave in Accra and a WiMAX Wireless network across the 10 Regional capitals.
It is servicing the network by buying bulk bandwidth at a cheaper price and is sharing it to government agencies.
NITA has also rolled out 11 e-service applications for MDAs including the Registrar General’s Department to help serve businesses and citizens better.
Source: GNA