BUDGET: Government to focus attention on IT

Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance, on Friday said government would focus attention on the development of Information Technology (IT) and its application to education, agriculture and industry.
He said software development would be pursued to enable "our strengths and capabilities to be amply demonstrated on the international market".
Presenting the 2001 budget to Parliament, the minister said government has allocated 37.01 billion cedis to the Ministry of Transport and Communications for the year.
On the telecom sector, Mr Osafo-Maafo said government "shall encourage operators to achieve targets set as provided for in their respective licenses".
"The Ministry of Transport and Communications shall follow up on the restructuring of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and acquire satellite communications for its television and FM radio stations," he said.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said government would improve the equipment and infrastructure base of offices of the Meteorological Services Department throughout the country to be able to analyse and forecast as well as improve the human resource capacity to enhance increased productivity. The ministry will formulate programmes that would enable a mass transport service to become operational by the year 2002.
In this regard, he said the ministry would encourage the private sector to import large occupancy buses for mass transportation.
"Prospective foreign investors will also be encouraged to team up with Ghanaians to operate mass transport service," he said.