Gov’t secures Microsoft suite to support public sector working initiative

Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has stated that, the government of Ghana has procured a smart working suite from Microsoft to support the entire public sector working initiative in the country.

She indicated that, the directive is to help Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of State Owned Enterprises to stop using their private emails for official state duties adding that, the practice will help to protect government national database.

“The government has partnered with Microsoft and E Solutions, its local partner to rollout the Smart Workplace™ platform. Smart Workplace™ is the virtual office for government workers. It provides the needed tools for staff communication, collaboration and meetings without participants being in the same space. With all these tools available, I am happy to announce that the use of personal emails for government business will no longer be permitted by the end of this year. Any government agency that has not yet been on boarded should contact NITA to be onboarded before close of the year. Please let me repeat, it will not be acceptable to use personal email to do official government business from next year” she made it known at the Technology Breakfast Meeting for public sector workers in Accra.

She added, “Cabinet has also decided that all MDAs/MMDAs must procure internet services from NITA and host their data and or disaster recovery sites at the National Data Centre. NITA and its technical partner have the capacity to provide high speed broadband services to its public sector clients. With support from the World Bank, we are about to roll out connectivity to all MMDAs, selected police stations, post offices and hospitals across the country. This is a dawn of a new era but we need to work with you to make it succeed. Just as you budget and pay for transport and utilities, you have to do same for connectivity and data services from NITA in this digital age. A key lesson learnt from the pandemic lockdowns around the world is that without utilizing digital solutions, the world as we know it will not survive. It kept us connected and working virtually and it is here to stay.   We are also working on change management in the public sector as we introduce these ICT systems. Attitudes die hard but we must change with the times.”

Director General of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), Richard Okyere-Fosu on his part bemoaned the inability of state agencies to use the data infrastructure provided for smart working solutions.

He assured that the agency is well positioned to provide all digital services for the public sector.

“Government has invested in a tier three national data centre. This is a powerful investment that government had made, but unfortunately government agencies are not taking advantage of it. so I appeal to you that after this meeting, if you want to even take a tour of the national data centre, I will personally do so that you can see the data infrastructure government has built. But we’re not taking advantage of it” he mentioned.

SIGA charged chief executives of all the agencies to ensure that their institutions are on board the smart working space to reduce cost of operations.