Business News of Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Source: GNA
Mr Ernest Attuquaye Armah, Deputy Minister of Communications, in an address read on his behalf, commended the company for its role in ICT revolution. He said government was challenged to ensure that the appropriate
enabling policies coupled with efficient regulatory regimes were implemented and further strengthened to promote the application of new technologies to enhance growth.
Mr Armah said to achieve these objectives, Ghana through the Ministry was pursuing the Digital Terrestrial Television Network throughout the country and hoped to ensure a complete switch-off of the analogue to terrestrial television broadcasting by December 2014 in line with international standards.
He said the migration might create numerous challenges to Ghanaians as currently most television sets being used by consumers did not have digital turner built-in.
Mr Armah said users might either acquire integrated digital television sets (IDTV) or convert their existing analogue television sets using set-up boxes popularly called decoders.
He noted that the process would offer many advantages to the country including better sound and picture quality, create a new revenue stream for government, new jobs and competition for content developers.
Mr Armah said to enable the citizenry benefit from the process, the Ministry through the National Communication Authority would embark on a nation-wide publicity and communication campaign to educate the public on the switch-over to digital broadcasting to prevent panic buying.
He urged the company to partner other institutions like the Ministry of Communications, Environmental Protection Agency, Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology and Ministry of Health to combat the threat of e-waste in Ghana.