Gov’t to make COVID-19 tracker app mandatory – Ursula

The Communications and Digitisation Minister-nominee, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has stated that it is important for considerations to be made for the COVID-19 tracker app to be mandatory in Ghana.

Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia first launched the GH COVID-19 Tracker App on April 13, 2020, to help boost the government’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Ghana.

But the app seems not to be getting the necessary appeal from Ghanaians.

Answering questions from the Appointment Committee of Parliament, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful explained that other countries have made the app mandatory, and it has helped them.

She added that talks with the Ghana Health Service are underway to see how the tracker can be incorporated into their terms.

“The infrastructure still exists. With this second wave [of COVID-19 infections], I think it will be useful if we re-visited the usage. We’re going to have further discussions with the Ghana Health Service to see how they can also incorporate it into their terms. In [South] Korea, it’s mandatory for everyone who enters the country to download their [COVID-19] app. The app already exists here. It is incumbent on us to utilize it.”

“All the functionalities that exist in the app in Korea, exist in the app in Ghana. If given the nod, I will work with the Ghana Health Service to increase the uptake of the app but we need to look at whether it will be voluntary downloads or we’ll make it mandatory, as it is in other countries,” she added.

Cost Zero

When asked how much did the App costed Ghana, Ursula revealed that, it was developed for the country free of charge.

She explained that some individuals volunteered to develop the app for the country.

“Many countries, at the onset of the pandemic, tried to use technology to assist them in contact-tracing, and for people to self-report to give an overview of what is happening in the various countries to enable the health authorities handle the situation.”

Unified Licensing Regime

Answering a question on how to bring down the cost internet, Ursula hinted that Ghana will be rolling out the unified license regime, a global standard of licensing for telecom operators soon.

This she says is in line with the quest by the government to make data accessible to consumers at a cheaper rate.

According to her, the current license regime doesn’t have the technology to grant a single license for a spectrum operation, therefore operators acquire a separate license for each spectrum that is either 2G, 3G or 4G.

This situation she believes will contribute to the high cost of internet or data.

“Moving forward, we will implement the unified licensing regime so that it doesn’t matter whether 2G, 3G or 4G spectrum license that you have to deliver the services that you want for your customers”