Govt to take critical look at IT - Minister

Mr Felix Owusu Agyepong, Minister of Transport and Communications, on Tuesday pledged government's determination to train more people, especially the youth, on Information Technology (IT) for its development and to prevent brain drain in that sector.
He said for the country to make a positive impact on IT, government had to take a critical look at value added services on the internet to be able to train more people, especially the youth to prevent them from leaving the country with their human resources.
Mr Agyepong was briefing newsmen after he accompanied a three-man delegation from the Internet Co-operation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to pay a courtesy call on President John Agyekum Kufuor at the Castle, Osu, behind closed doors.
The call was part of the quarterly meeting of the Board of ICANN currently underway in Accra. Mr Vinton G. Cerf (Ed. Correct), Chairman of the Board, led the delegation. Mr Agyepong said government had to set the guidelines and the political direction to create the enabling environment for the private sector to participate in the sector.
That is why the government has a policy that, within the next three years every second cycle institution should be linked to the internet for the students to have access and develop the interest.
Mr Cerf said IT had an important role to play in the country's drive for investment promotion and growth and was happy that government had made available the avenue for such a development in the country. He said there were indications that government had made partnership with the private sector possible for joint ventures in the sector.
Dr Nii Darku Quaynor, Executive Chairman of Network Computer Systems, said a major challenge facing the country in the development of IT was the non-availability of the required people with technical knowledge to boost the sector. He said government's support was needed to develop good human capacity to provide human-based solutions to designs for basic infrastructure for development.