Eleven MDAs hook to Ghana Government eServices Portal

Eleven Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have been connected to the Ghana Government Online Services Project (eServices), to deliver Government services to the public.

The beneficiary MDAs include the ministry of foreign affairs passport office, Accra metropolitan assembly, food and drugs board, births and deaths registry, national identification authority, national communication authority, national information technology agency, Ghana tourism authority, minerals commission, driver and vehicle licensing authority, and Ghana police service CID Office.

Mr. Iddrisu Haruna, Minister of Communications, speaking at the launch on Friday said the country owed much of the progress in Information Communication Technology in the last few years to the late President, Professor John Evans Atta Mills and President John Dramani Mahama.

He said the eServices Portal would not only reduce bureaucracy, bribery and corruption, but would allow transparency in transactions.

The Minister said Government’s monetary support to foster that public, private partnership was worth mentioning, adding that the launch should serve as a wake-up call for the country to adopt new and faster ways of transacting Government business.

He announced that the project was a 40- million dollar World Bank funded project aimed at increasing transparency and efficiency in the delivery of Government services to the public.

Mr. William Tevie, Director General of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), said the eServices Portal was a one-stop service portal for Government services and would soon be extended to some other 100 MDAs country-wide.

He said the e-services Portal was a Content Management System for managing hosted content on the Government portal, a payment gateway to allow portal applications to receive payments from customers, e-forms and a document management application.

He said his ministry hoped to introduce an e-justice system, e-immigration, e-parliament, and e-Government procurement system in future.

Mrs. Veronica Boateng, Director of Application Systems at NITA, said the project would also provide a free flow of information between departments and agencies, service providers and the public and urged the public to freely patronize the site.

Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, Board Chairman of NITA, commended the late president Mills and President Mahama for the foresight, saying that the eServices Portal would remove unnecessary barriers and make it easier to access Government information.

The eServices Portal was one of the e-Ghana projects implemented by the ministry of communications and national information technology agency.**