African Elections Project- Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique

African Elections Project

Elections are crucial bedrock for democracies and enabling a free and open society.  The role of the media in ensuring successful election is very crucial.  All over the world the media is playing this important role of ensuring free and fair elections by working with all stakeholders across board.The media can strengthen the electoral process by providing independent information through impartial coverage. Three important elements come into play: access to information on the political process, ability to undertake investigate journalism and document lessons and experiences from the electioneering process.

 

There are a lot of challenges and problems facing the media in the area of election coverage. Key among them is lack of access to real-time information, lack of capacity to undertake investigative journalism surrounding elections, use of ICTs in coverage,  inability to produce balanced reports and to incorporate user content are some of the  challenges and problems facing the media during elections coverage.  In order to address some of these problems, African Elections Project was launched in September 2000 with the following key activity areas :

v     Training for senior editors, journalists and reporters

v      SMS application in coverage and monitoring

v      Election Guide for the Media

v      Information and Knowledge Online Portal

v      Knowledge products for the media

v      Media Content Monitoring

 

 

With funding from OSISA - The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa www.osisa.org working with key partners, African Elections Project is providing coverage for the following countries in the Southern Africa region : 

 

1. Mozambique http://www.africanelections.org/mozambique/

http://twitter.com/mozambiquevotos

 

2. Namibia http://www.africanelections.org/namibia/

http://twitter.com/namibiaelection

 

3. Botswana http://www.africanelections.org/botswana/

http://twitter.com/botswanaelects

 

 

If you are in the region or any of the above countries and want to get involve with this exciting project send a mail to

info@africanelections.org

 

Hope to hear from you soon

 

Editor 

www.africanelections.org 

 

 

 

Countries Covered so far :

1. Ghana www.africanelections.org/ghana
2. Mauritania www.africanelections.org/mauritania
3. Malawi www.africanelections.org/malawi 

Pending Elections :

Cote d'Ivoire www.africanelections.org/cotedivoire,

Niger www.africanelections.org/niger

and Guinea www.africanelctions.org/guinea

 

 

Declaration on ICT for Development,World Congress on ICT for Development, 11 September 2009, Beijing

Declaration on ICT for Development

World Congress on ICT for Development, 11 September 2009, Beijing

 

 

The 2009 World Congress on ICT for Development, WCID'09, held Sept. 10-12, 2009 in Beijing, was sponsored by the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) and China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), co-sponsored by International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nation's Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), and the International Center for Science-Technology-Innovation for South-South Cooperation (ISTIC), and organized by the WFEO Committee on Information and Communication (CIC). The theme of WCID09 was "ICT for Development". A number of issues of significance related to the theme were addressed in the Congress and the participants have reached the following understandings and agreements.

 

1, Millennium Development Goal, for Remedying the Unbalancing Boat

 

People, from every corner of the globe have same rights for seeking the happier life. We are in fact in a big village and sailing on the same boat.

 

Due to historical reasons, however, people have been in different positions, richer or poorer, stronger or weaker, well-educated or less-enlightened. Over-unbalance may lead to danger to the mankind.

 

To remedy the situation, the United Nations have set a Millennium Development Goal to at least halve the poor population before 2015. This is a loyal responsibility for all of us.

 

2, Information Age, New Stage of Human Society

 

Science and Technology as a whole is the major driving force for the development of human society.

 

Material Science and Technology has made it possible for human society to advance from nomadic age to agricultural age, Energy Science and Technology has driven the society from agricultural age to industrial age, and now Information Science and Technology is leading the society from industrial age to information age.

 

3, ICT, Effective Tool for Development in the New Age

 

Advancement of the human society depends on the new tools innovated by science and technology.

 

The typical new tool in information age is the information and communication technology, ICT, which has two stages to develop: the Primary stage and the Advanced stage.

 

The Primary ICT Tool supports the convenience of information sharing among people that will make better matches among sectors of the society and thus improves the social productivities.

 

The Advanced ICT Tool will support highest efficiency and creativity in social productivities and provide equal opportunity for people to use, leading the various kinds of gaps existed in society gradually diminished.

 

4, Education, Key to the Use of ICT Tool

 

To effectively use ICT Tool for making progress in economic and social development, people need to acquire necessary kinds of knowledge and skills. Education will thus play the most fundamental and indispensable role.

 

People in information age have the advantage of using ICT for receiving education. This has been proved by many appreciable cases presented during WCID'09.

 

5, Responsibility for Governments and Citizens

 

Government in any country should take on the responsibility to promote the national education for all people and place education as the top priority on the national development agenda.

 

Government should also take effective measures to encourage all stakeholders for building up and maintaining the national infrastructure as well as creating the variety of information resources so that people, including disabled people, can afford to use ICT Tool for learning, working and living.

 

Citizens should well be aware of the importance of learning and people are never too old to learn ICT.

 

6, Responsibility for International Organizations

 

To reduce the unbalance of development among nations, international cooperation between developed and developing countries should be strengthened. Developed countries have responsibility to provide assistance to the developing countries in this regards.

 

The international organizations have obligations to work together for promoting various kinds of cooperation among nations. Conference, e.g., WCID'09, is one of the approaches for this purpose.

 

7, Public Call

 

The participants of WCID'09 strongly appeal to all citizens, professions, governments and international bodies to take effective actions in promoting ICT for sustainable human, economic and social development.

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Vodafone reduces broadband installation charges

Accra, Sept. 15, GNA - Vodafone Ghana, has announced a reduction in the installation charge of its fixed broadband service from GHc90 to GHc55, a statement copied to the GNA said.

The reduction, which started from September 11, 2009, would last for a period of three months.

The statement said the reduction meant that, the initial upfront cost for new broadband customers has reduced significantly.

"We have reduced our installation charges so that everyone can connect to our broadband facilities," it said.

Recently Vodafone introduced a wireless dongle that offered on-the-go internet service on Vodafone Mobile broadband. Dubbed, the Vodafone Mobile Connect, the dongle gave customers always-on, fast Internet access on one's PC or laptop "whether you're stationary, on the move, indoor or outdoor," a statement said. The service, which came with a Vodafone USB Modem with a new Tariff Offer for Post-paid and Prepaid subscribers, would soon be available in the market.

The statement said Prepaid Customers would enjoy an additional GHC20 to start directly with the service.

It said Vodafone's broadband had a suite of business broadband packages tailored to the needs of Solar and Heliospheric Observatory service (SOHOs), Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SME's) and large enterprises.

In a related development, the Vodafone Group had launched a Wi-Fi hotspot application that would enable users to connect up to five devices to the same mobile broadband connection, a statement copied to the GNA said.

The "Vodafone Mobile Broadband Hotspot" would initially be available in Germany, Romania and Spain and soon in Ghana and other Vodafone operations in Ghana, would support High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) connectivity up to 7.2 Mbps.

The credit-card-sized independent operating system enables customers to connect quickly and easily to any device that supports the Wi-Fi standard, and then connect to the internet using Vodafone's mobile broadband connectivity.

With one touch to power on, users will be able to detect the mobile Wi-Fi cloud using any device configured for Wi-Fi and connect up to five devices within a 10-metre radius.

The device has an internal battery that provides up to four hours of active use on a single charge.

"The Vodafone Mobile Broadband Hotspot offers mobile professionals, students and families a one-touch connectivity solution that turns Wi-Fi enabled devices such as MP3 players and laptops into connected mobile internet devices," the statement said.

It said the product brought even more flexibility to customers, and ensures that Vodafone's market leading mobile broadband could be rolled out to even more devices to give customers greater convenience. Vodafone has a monopoly over SAT-3, the only submarine fibre optics cable with a landing station in Ghana, giving the company monopoly over broadband.

But two more submarine fibre optic cables, Glo One and Main One, are due to land in Ghana soon, which would broadband ownership available to other telecom operators and ISPs; and analysts say that would break Vodafone's monopoly on broadband and automatically force prices down.

GNA



ps: SOHO stands for Small Office Home Office not Solar and Heliospheric Observatory stated above

Fibre Optics: Africa on Information Superhighway

A GNA Feature by Samuel Dowuona

So much has been said about fibre optics over the last two years, particularly submarine fibre optics communications technology coming to Ghana.

The hype of the fibre optics talk was particularly fuelled by the sale of 70 per cent of the Enlarged Ghana Telecom to Vodafone at a "paltry" $900 million.

The Enlarged GT included the fixed line operations, the mobile phone operations (Onetouch), the call centre (Exzeed), the National Fibre Optics Backbone and the SAT-3 Submarine Fibre Optics landing station.

In simple terms, fibre optics refers to the technology that enables the transmission of information (as light impulses) along a glass-like or plastic-like wire other than the conventional copper wire. Fibre optic wire carries much more information at a faster speed than conventional copper wire and is far less subject to breaks in communications. It is widely used by telephone companies, around the world, for long-distance lines.

Because fibre optics transmits larger volumes of information (data and voice) at a higher speed, it makes internet and telecommunications more affordable than satellite does.

In fact, the coming of fibre optics has compelled satellite technology companies to slash down their prices by more than 50 per cent, said Karl Keppke, Regional Sales Director for O3b Networks, a satellite company with operations in Africa.

Mr Keppke told this writer, at the just ended Telecom World Africa Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, that he was confident that there would continue to be a fair mix of satellite and fibre optics communication technologies on the African Continent. The benefits fibre optics promises for Africa are obvious; speed and affordability of electronic communication; this means internet access and data transmission will be cheaper and voice communication could be free.

These are necessary to enable Africa to catch up with the rest of the world at a faster rate.

Another fall out advantage of fibre optics, particularly for those who are concerned about the spread of telecom masts in residential areas across Ghana, is that fibre optics does not need masts and antennae to operate. Satellite technology uses masts but fibre optics is underground technology.

Currently, Africa is virtually inundated in the sea of submarine fibre optic cables; there are at least eight undersea fibre optic cables, with an aggregate of 10.94 terabytes capacity, landing in almost all the coastal countries of Africa; some of the cables also provide connectivity to several inland countries.

The undersea cables available to Africa right now are SAT-3, 120 gigabytes; Main-one, 1.92 terabytes; Glo-one, 640 gigabytes; East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY), 1.3 terabytes; South Asia Telecom Cable (SEACOM), 1.2 terabytes; The Eastern African Marine Systems (TEAMS), 640 gigabytes; and the largest of them all, West Africa Cable System (WACS), 5.12 terabytes.

On the West Coast of Africa, SAT-3 (14,000km), WACS (14,000km) and Main one (14,000 km) connects Europe to South Africa, stretching from Portugal, with several landing stations along the western coast of Africa, including Ghana, down to the south.

Glo1 (9,500km), owned by Nigerian-based Globacom, connects United Kingdom to Nigeria, landing in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Ghana.

Ghana is a beneficiary of at least four submarine cables; SAT-3, which is currently 50 per cent live; Glo1, expected to go live later this year; Main-one due in May 2010 and WACS due 2011. All things being equal, in less than five years, the whole of Africa should be hooked unto fibre optics technology.

According to Mr Alhassan Umar, Executive Director of Information Technology Enable Service (ITES) Secretariat, with such a huge fibre optic capacity, Ghana stands to benefit in the area of business processes outsourcing (BPO).

He explained that the submarine fibre optics landing stations would provide a huge backup of redundant fibre optics capacity that would trigger investor confidence in the ability of the country's BPO companies to provide reliable, high speed and affordable communications service to their clients around the world.

On the eastern coast of Africa there is EASSY Way, 10,000km long, which connects South Africa to Sudan, with several landing stations along the eastern coast. Twenty other countries in south-eastern and north-eastern Africa are also connected to EASSY. SEACOM (15,000km) is also on the east, connecting France to India, with at least seven landing stations in Africa; from South Africa through the eastern coast to Egypt in the north.

TEAMS is 4,500km long and links Kenya with the United Arab Emirates, with possible landing stations in Rwanda, Southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi.

Affordable and high speed transmission of information, reduction in spread of telecom masts and confidence booster in Africa as a BPO hub, are all very good benefits of fibre optics for Africa, but telecom industry investors, operators and regulators think there is more to this fibre optics discussion than the expected benefits.

At the just ended Telecom World Africa 2009 conference in Cape Town South Africa, industry stakeholders expressed concern over whether the expected level of demand for fibre optics technology in Africa, is worth the billions of dollars being invested to develop the technology. The supply side has been well catered for, but there is a dilemma as to whether the level of demand would sustain the supply; the danger of a huge chunk of Africa's fibre optic capacity remaining redundant is staring industry stakeholders in the face.

TEAMS, for instance, is being constructed at a cost of $82 million; EASSY Way, $235; Main One, $240 million, SEACOM, $600 million and WACS, SAT-3 and GLO1 are all multi-million-dollar projects. One of the arguments was that, not many of the 72 GSM carriers and 35 CDMA operators (like Kasapa) in Africa can afford to buy fibre optics capacity.

Price per megabyte per month of fibre optic capacity differs from one cable to the other; on SAT-3, for instance, a megabyte of capacity costs between $4,500 to $12,000 per month; 50 times higher than what similar fibre optics capacity in the United States of America. WIOCC, majority shareholders of EASSY Way, said their capacity would sell for about a million dollars less than what is already on the market.

Currently, there are at least 80 drivers, including major telecom operators, internet service providers (ISPs) and corporate investors onboard the fibre optics train and actually driving the development of the technology.

That excludes a huge number of smaller telecom operators and their customers from the fibre optics revolution. Industry stakeholders also argued that fibre optics consumption lies more in data communication and internet connectivity than in voice, saying that the high level of illiteracy, poverty, power supply bottlenecks and lack of access to ICT infrastructure to a larger portion of Africa's population were genuine concerns for operators and investors.

It is, for instance, projected that data costs, which now averaged between $5,000 and $7,000 per megabit of bandwidth on satellite, would be reduced drastically to $500 per megabit on fibre optics, and that would translate into even more affordable transmission of data for the average African. (Source: TEAMS Kenya)

But people are not likely to do data communications if they are not educated and or cannot afford to acquire ICT equipment and hi-tech mobile handsets needed for that kind of communication. Again there is a huge power supply problem across Africa, which even makes it difficult for people who are able and can afford ICT equipment to do data communication effectively.

The call is, therefore, for telecom operators in Africa to collaborate with their respective governments of the countries they operate in to deal with some of the bottlenecks now, when not much of the fibre optics is live on the Continent yet.

In Ghana, the Government has awarded a $150 million contract to Huawei, a Chinese telecom infrastructure installation company, to provide infrastructure that would allow nationwide broadband connectivity on the back of the... long National Fibre Optics Backbone. Some of the operators, particularly MTN, have earmarked funds to build ICT centres in all 10 regions of the country to give internet access to schools and communities in the hinterlands. The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) is also undertaking a similar project; providing ICT centres and power sources to un-served and under-served communities across the country. GIFEC and individual operators have also collaborated to provide lots of fixed wireless pay phones in rural communities and in schools to enable people make and receive calls as well as receive money transferred to them on pay phones.

Speaking of money transfer, the telecom operators in Ghana are also coming up with lots of Value Added Service (VAS), which makes convergence technology such as voice over internet protocol (VOIP), mobile money, mobile TV and others relevant to the average Africa. Indeed, convergence technology has been identified as one way by which much more fibre optics capacity could be consumed through the use of mobile handsets. There was one more concern about submarine fibre optic cables in Africa; security. The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Regulator, Ernest Ndukwe said African states must put measures in place to ward off saboteurs and thieves from submarine fibre optic path and from the landing stations as well. Paul Edwards, Chairman of Starcomms Communications, Nigeria, who presided at the TWA 09 conference, said submarine fibre optics is bringing the kind of information technology available to the average citizen in a developed country to the average citizen of an African country with Mr Sarat Dutt Lallah, CEO of Mauritius Telecom adding that when the time comes, Africans would be ready for it. 15 Sept. 09

GNA

Zita Okaikoi, Ablakwa, et' al address citizens on Facebook

The Minister of Information, Mrs Zita Okaikoi and her two deputies from now on, will be on the social networking site, Facebook, to interact with citizens.

The move, the minister said, is in recognition of the fact that the internet has become an important tool in the new media.

Speaking to Joy FM's Super Morning Show host Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, Mrs Okaikoi said the government recognises that its information needs to reach the people who need it.

She said, herself and her deputies, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa and James Agyenim Boateng, would spend two hours each on selected days on Facebook to address the concerns of Ghanaians on the social networking site.

She is available every Friday, from 8am to 10am on Facebook, while Okudzeto is on every Wednesday from 3pm to 5pm, and Agyenim Boateng comes every Thursday, 4pm to 6pm.

The Information Minister says she hopes to be able to interact with as many people as possible every Friday when she takes her turn.

"We think that as government information (outfit), we should be able to interact with people one-on-one on a personal basis so that we will be able to address their issues and take their concerns," she explained.

According to her, traditional media such as radio and newspapers are not adequate in addressing the needs of the citizenry.

She said there are many people out there, "who have needs but do not have access to anyone to talk to in government so these are the people we are considering creating this channel for."

The minister said immediate action will be taken on issues raised by citizens through the platform.

Source : jfm

Benin hosts Penplusbytes’ Communication Design Workshop

Thirty (30) West African Newspaper and Magazine Designers from both Francophone and Anglophone speaking West African countries are meeting at the Universite d'Abomey Calavi, Campus Numerique Francophone de Cotonou in Benin for the 2nd West African Communication Design Workshop.

Opening the workshop, Guy Constant Ehoumi, deputy president of Union des Professionnels des Medias du Benin - UPMB (Journalists Union of Benin) said they are pleased to welcome participants from West African countries to Contonou for the workshop and asked the participants to take advantage of this unique training opportunity to learn more about how to improve the design and layout of their various publications.

The workshop which runs from 6th to 10th April 2009, focuses on visual theory, design as a profession, working on publications in a newsroom and designing for different audiences. This short course also engages already existing knowledge about what constitutes good newspaper/magazine. In addition to the main course, a group of participants are taking a Training of Trainers (TOT) course in design communications.

Speaking on the objectives of the course, the president of Penplusbytes, Kwami Ahiabenu II, said "unfortunately most training programmes for the media turn to forget the role of design in the media and we have come out with this workshop to provide capacity building for design communicators and graphic design in West Africa thereby filling a major training gap."

Participants to the workshop are drawn from the following West Africa countries including: Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote D'Ivoire and The Gambia.

Two key experts in design communications namely; Shalen Gajadhar of Rhodes University, South Africa and Nahmsath Yabouri, an Open Source expert based in Togo are the key facilitators for this course.

The second workshop training course on Design Communication 2009 is jointly organized by The International Institute for ICT Journalism www.penplusbytes.org, Highway Africa, Digital Media Foundation in partnership and with funding from Open Society Initiative of West Africa (OSIWA), www.osiwa.org.

http://news.myjoyonline.com/international/200904/28537.asp

Computer Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) to be Reviewed

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has reviewed the Computerized School Selection and Placement system (CSSPS) to enable more qualified candidates to gain admission to Senior High Schools according to Ghanaian Times. The review was necessitated by the fact that every year, since its inception in 2004, about 20 per cent of candidates with good scores are not able to get placement. Mr. Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, Director General of the GES, speaking at a media briefing in Accra on Friday, said the CSSPS has been confronted with many challenges in its five years of operation.

He said most of the problems were human-related since some parents repeatedly selected the same school in the options given them with the perception that their wards would get that particular school, no matter their performances.

Mr. Bannerman-Mensah said other candidates refused to select schools in their communities thereby placing undue stress on schools with limited boarding facilities, while others placed their priorities on particular schools that did not have place for them as a result of the high competition in the aggregates scored.

He said to address the challenges, schools had been categorized according to availability of facilities, geographical location, subjects offered and vacancies available to allow candidates spread their choices so as to increase their chances of being placed.

He said the schools had been put into six categories of Public Senior High Schools in 'A,' to 'D', Public Technical/Vocational, Institutions under category 'T' and Private Senior High Schools and Technical Vocational Institutes in category 'P'.

Mr. Bannerman-Mensah explained that every candidate was expected to choose a total of six schools, stressing that candidates would be allowed to choose only one school from category 'A' and a maximum of two schools from category 'B'.

He said if a candidate made five choices from categories 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D' and 'T' the sixth school must be either from category 'C' or 'D', 'T' or 'P'.

"A person who desires to pursue purely Technical courses may select all six choices from category 'P'. The same also goes for candidates who desire to pursue courses in private senior high schools.

Mr. Bannerman-Mensah said as a result of the development, the Basic Entrance Certificate Examination registration has been decoupled, explaining that it would give the candidate another opportunity to re-select their schools and programmes between April 4 to 8 before their examinations while the registration for the BECE would now take place in September/October.

Previously the registration and the school selection were done at the same time.

EPA: Draft document on co-location of telecom masts ready

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and its collaborators have completed a draft document seeking legally binding modalities for telecom operators to undertake co-location exercises according to GNA

The 26-page draft document made available to the Ghana News Agency is entitled "Guidelines for the Installation and Operation of Communication Mast in Ghana". It is designed to inject sanity into the mounting of telecom masts and antennas in the face of the rapidly growing telecom industry. The document noted that from the late 1990s till date, the telecom industry, particularly mobile telecom, has seen rapid growth leading to the littering of residential areas and the countryside with telecom masts with its attendant aesthetic and public safety concerns. "In some instances, masts are installed without compliance with existing regulatory requirements; unfortunately no other structured tower and antenna support structures has been developed to specifically regulate the location and construction of masts," it said. Co-location allows more than one telecom operator to mount their equipment at a common cell site and serve their subscribers. Mr Ebenezer K. Appiah-Sampong, Director of Environmental Assessment and Auditor of the EPA, told the Ghana News Agency that in the face of challenges posed by littering of masts, co-location was the best alternative option to salvage the situation.

He said even though the telecom operators were fully aware that co-location was a sure way to create a win-win situation for all the stakeholders in the industry including subscribers, regulators and the operators themselves, they had only been paying lip service to it for years now because there was no law enjoining them to undertake co-location. "The telecom operators are quick to blame the permit agencies like EPA for the poor quality service. Meanwhile they have not been able to take a single action on co-location since they started discussions on it years now," he said.

Mr. Appiah-Sampong said one of the cardinal purposes of the guidelines would also be to ensure that the National Communications Authority (NCA), made it a licensing requirement for operators to undertake co-location, adding that it should be possible for the NCA itself to mount masts at strategic positions for the purposes of co-location. Operators who spoke with the GNA admitted that even though they had agreed on hundreds of cell sites for co-location, they had not been able to take action on even one, for reasons not yet clear. The Chief Executive Office of MTN, Brett Goschen, said the market leader had submitted a list of all its current and future cell sites to other operators but their competitors had not done same adding that co-location would save the operators money. Meanwhile aggregately, operators have made thousands of separate requests to the permit agencies, including the EPA, District, Municipal and Metropolitan Assemblies, the Ghana National Fire Service and Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) for permits to mount their own cell sites within residential areas.

The GNA has a long list of complaints made to the EPA by residents of communities where cell sites have been mounted. The complaints include mounting of cell sites without the consent of residents; congestion of masts in particular communities; masts close to people's homes; radiation; fumes and noise from generators causing health problems; schools losing pupils whose parents are concerned about nearby masts.

Mr Appiah-Sampong said the myriad of complaints the EPA received and attended to on daily basis was enough to ensure that the telecom companies were made legally enjoined to undertake co-location. On delays in the issuance of permits, Mr Appiah-Sampong noted that several of the requests presented to the EPA for permits were incomplete, saying that an operator needed to show proof of consultation with residents of the community within which it sought to mount a mast, but in most of the cases there was no such proof. "We have asked most of the operators to take the necessary steps to complete their requests but they have not. There are others who have completed the process and we have asked them to come and pay for the permit to be issued but they have not done so for months now," he said. Mr Appiah-Sampong said some operators mounted cell sites without the requisite permits and some had had to bring their masts down of that reason.

"There are currently several telecom masts which have been mounted and are functioning without the requisite permits and the EPA keeps receiving and attending to complaints about those." Mr Appiah-Sampong said the EPA, together with the other permit agencies, the regulator and the operators themselves, was designing a public education programme to disabuse the minds of citizens about the fear of radiation and other concerns about telecom masts. "But it is our opinion that the operators should have led the way for the permit agencies and the regulators to support but they keep putting huge money into other ventures to promote their brands instead of educating the public to correct the wrong perceptions about telecom masts," he said.

Tigo, Google, GNA launch SMS service

Millicom Ghana, operators of Tigo, in collaboration with Google and the Ghana News Agency (GNA) has launched a value added service to provide subscribers with internet-based information through text messaging.

The service allows Tigo subscribers to send text messages to short code '4664' to receive information on weather, currency conversions, news from all over the world and sports among others as may be preferred by the subscriber.

The service also allows Tigo subscribers to access definition of words and translations of English words into other languages.

As per the collaboration, Google will provide the internet service facility whilst GNA provides news feeds. 

Ms Anita Erskine, Corporate Affairs Manager of Tigo, said the service was to ensure that apart from the normal voice calls, customers had the opportunity to use the network to build on knowledge.

She said the company was committed to adding value to communication and giving customers value for money.

Mrs. Estelle Akofio-Sowah, Google Ghana Office Lead, said subscribers did not need hi-tech phones to access the service since it was based on ordinary text messaging, adding that the cost per service was the same as that of a regular sms.

Mr Kweku Ofosu Adakwa, Chief Director of the Ministry of Communications, was hopeful that the service would provide entrepreneurs with the opportunity to deploy ICT in meaningful ways to help minimize the cost of doing business.

He called on subscribers to use the service for social networking to promote inclusiveness and confidence among one another.

 

Source: GNA

India inaugurates Pan-African e-Network project

The Indian government on Thursday inaugurated its Pan –African E-network project for 11 African countries aimed at promoting effective communication and connectivity in the continent through satellite and fibre network.
     The 125 million-dollar support project would also facilitate the sharing of Indian's expertise in the fields of education and healthcare with members states of the African Union (AU).
     The project was proposed by Indian's ex-president Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam during the Pan African Parliament in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 2004.
     At a video conference in Accra which saw the inauguration of the projects via electronic interaction with Ministers of State of the beneficiary countries, Mr Pramab Mukherjee, Indian's External Affairs Minister, noted that the project was part of India's commitment to socio-economic development in Africa.
     He indicated that the project would help bridge the digital divide between his country and the continent and further support e-governance, e-commerce and other information technology tools in beneficiary countries.
     Mr Mukhejee said the Indian government hoped to connect the project to all 53 AU member states and expressed the hope that this would further help to promote South-South cooperation
     Touching on Ghana's ties with India, Mr. Mukhejee said the two countries continued to enjoy good bilateral relations and expressed the hope that this would continue under President John Evans Atta Mills' government.
      He mentioned the construction of the Golden Jubilee House and the Kofi Annan ICT Centre as some projects that demonstrated the ties between the two countries.
     The Minister further congratulated Ghanaians for demonstrating political maturity during the December 2008 elections.
     Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Communications, hinted that under the project, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology had been selected as one of the five super specialty regional centres and hubs for tele-education programmes in the sub-region.
     He said the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital had also been selected as a patient–end centre for tele-medicine and information sharing to improve quality healthcare, while the University of Ghana would be a learning centre for undergraduate and postgraduate programme in ICT.
      The Minister said the project had already installed a VVIP Node at the Golden Jubilee House that would provide voice and video conferencing services for the President with other Heads of State.
     Mr Iddrisu thanked the Indian government for the support and pledged the government's commitment to continue to cooperate with India, especially in the areas of ICT education and Business Processing Outsourcing.
     The beneficiaries are Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Senegal, Mauritius, Seychelles, Benin, The Gambia, Gabon and Burkina Faso.
GNA

Computerize hospitals for efficient health care delivery

Participants at a day's consultative stakeholders meeting in Accra to discuss "the role of ICT in health care delivery" on Wednesday made a strong case for computerization of internet connectivity system to exist among hospitals in the country for efficient health care delivery.
     The participants, who were drawn from both public and private health institutions in the country, also called for Information Communication Technology (ICT) courses to be made part of the curriculum of the country's medical and health training institutions to equip the students with knowledge on its application to deliver quality service to patients.
     Chaired by Professor Ofosu Armah, formerly of the School of Public Health Legon, and organized by the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, the meeting explored the potential and actual use of ICT in health care delivery in the country and examined ways in which ICT could help strengthen the pillars of the country's health care delivery system.
     Participants were of the view that when the hospitals were computerized and inter-connectivity made possible among them, it would make diagnosis and health care delivery to patients easy and quicker at anywhere in the country.
     Currently, apart from using the manual system, health training institutions and hospitals in the country do not have ICT interconnectivity system to allow doctors to track medical records of patients easily.
     It therefore, called for action to be expedited on the country's ICT policy to ensure that the problem was addressed to make health care delivery more efficient.
GNA

$200m Fibre Optic Cable Project Underway

Work has begun on a 200-million dollar undersea fibre optic cable, which aims to provide reliable internet and telecommunication services to industry stakeholders across Ghana and Nigeria.

The project being undertaken by Main One Cable Company will help to minimize the difficulties of switching traffic between African countries and eliminate the inconveniences and added cost of first routing traffic to Europe.

It is in line with the continent's quest to participate fully in the Information and Communication Technology through digital connection with the rest of the world.

The company has already begun laying the cables, which will run from Portugal to Ghana and Nigeria to enhance efforts to digitally connect Africa with the rest of the world.

Speaking at a press briefing in Accra to officially announce the commencement of work, Ms Funke Opeke, Chief Executive Officer of the company said the first phase of the project is expected to be completed in May 2010.

The first phase spans 6,900 kilometres extending from Portugal to Ghana and Nigeria with an additional 6,000 Kilometres extension to South Africa and Angola in the second phase.

The development, she said, represented a major landmark for the continent, as this was the first time ever that a private sector driven undersea cable network received landing licences.

The company secured the licenses from Ghana's National Communications Authority and the Nigerian Communications Commission respectively, granting it the right to land its intercontinental undersea fibre optic cable in the two countries.

Ms. Opeke said funding for the project was sought within the African continent adding that; "it shows how committed we are in using the continent's resources to build this solid infrastructure for Africa."

"The unique promise of the Main One undersea cable to boost Internet access across the African continent lies in the huge improvement in bandwidth which we will be driving even while reducing costs phenomenally".

Main One, she said, is deploying the very latest technology in undersea fibre optic cabling.

"In employing the combination of Dense Wave Multiplexing Technology of 1.28 Terabits per second and two fibre pairs Main One will deliver far more capacity to the region than any existing or proposed undersea projects even while bringing costs down to about twenty percent of what is currently obtainable from SAT 3 or satellite service operators," Opeke stated.

In addition to providing a major boost to Internet access on the continent, Main One, she said would help to considerably minimize the difficulties of switching traffic between African countries and eliminate the inconveniences
and added costs of first routing traffic to Europe.

"We will also enhance job creation and local content development through skills transfer in ICT and particularly networking technologies," she said.

Beyond these direct benefits, however, said Opeke, the granting of the pioneer landing licenses to Main One Cable Company, represents a major milestone for the continuing growth of telecommunications regulatory capacity on the continent.

"Intercontinental undersea cabling, especially as driven by private sector operatives is a relatively new phenomenon in Africa and it is remarkable that regulators are fast amassing the critical expertise with which to drive rapid growth and development in this unique area for the benefit of the continent," she said.

Mr. Thomas Schaefer Jr. Shore End Installation Engineer, Tyco Telecommunication Company partners in the project said test conducted at the beach of Teshie where the cable would pass revealed that the soil is good for the exercise.

"We don't foresee any difficulty with our work with regards to the soil in Ghana," he said.


Source: GNA