Friday, August 1, 2008

THAT ALL MAY ACCESS WWW.COM

A PATHETIC picture was painted of the country’s poor Internet use and standing on the African continent, with Ghana placing only ahead of Sierra Leone and Liberia.
This sordid state of affairs should be cause for concern to everybody in the 21st century when Information and Communications Technology (ICT) rules the world.
Ghana’s hold on mobile phone patronage, undoubtedly, is high, as every nook and cranny of the country is somehow connected to some of the major mobile networks. Obviously, the high mobile phone patronage should translate into Internet use to make every hamlet of the country become part of the global village in order to share in its joy and benefits.
According to the 2007 World Bank report on Internet use in the world, only 401,300 Ghanaians, representing 1.8 per cent of the country’s population of an estimated 22 million, have access to the Internet.
The report cited Ghana as one of the African countries with the lowest record of Internet patronage, coming behind South Africa, Nigeria, Morocco, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Senegal.
Speaking at a ceremony in Accra yesterday, the President of the Ghana Association of Leasing Companies (GALCO), Mr Ernest Mintah, made reference to the World Bank report and called for the government’s intervention to give more Ghanaians access to the Internet.
According to him, the government should waive taxes and duties on computers and their accessories to allow for more importation of computers into the country in order to promote the use of computers and the Internet in schools and at workplaces.
That Internet facilities and access to personal computers enhance teaching and learning and increase the productivity of businesses can no longer be relegated to the background. But it is one thing having access to personal computers and another having access to the Internet.
This is because the Internet business thrives on a good telephone system, at least the land line system, which is non- existent in most of our rural areas, including district capitals, thereby making it impossible for people to get hooked onto the system.
We will be doing a great disservice to our pupils and students in the rural areas where people cannot afford to use their mobile lines for Internet purposes if the situation is not addressed. It is in this direction that Ghana Telecom should be supported to become viable so that it can extend its land line system to the rural areas.
That notwithstanding, the mobile telephone companies should, as part of their social responsibility, give support to rural communities to establish ICT centres, especially in educational institutions, and give them very subsidised, if not free, lines to enable them to hook onto the global grid. It is only through such assistance that we can, for instance, bridge the rural/urban digital divide.
While we support Mr Mintah’s appeal to the government to waive taxes and duties on computers and their accessories to allow for more importation of computers into the country, we also believe that mobile phone service providers which go to the aid of the rural areas should be considered for tax rebates.
The DAILY GRAPHIC also calls on the government to speed up action on the establishment of ICT centres in all the district capitals to ease access to the world-wide web.

No comments: