Daniel Nonor
18 June 2009
Telecommunications service operators in the country have been cautioned to step up their service quality to the citizenry, and work within the framework of regulations governing the industry, or face the severest of sanctions.
The Vice President of Ghana, H. E. John Mahama, said this at the opening of the Intenational Telecommunications Union (ITU) Forum on the implementation of decisions of the World Telecommunication Standardisation Assembly, in Accra on Tuesday.
The Vice President, who was particularly unhappy with the quality of service and operations of some mobile telecom operators in the country, said the government was working at strenghening institutions such as the National Communications Authority (NCA) to undertake stringent monitoring of the service's activity, to ensure strict compliance of regulations, and value for money for users of telecom services in the country.
As part of efforts to curb the increasing rate of cyber crime in the country,the Vice President of ghana HE John Mahamah hinted that government will establish a National Internert Registry and a Computer Response Team to assist in the implementation aspects of the cyber security initiative in the country.
He recounted that as the country continued to modernise its communications infrastructure, there was also a sorry observation of the emergence of cyber crimes in the Ghanaian society, to the extent that the youth of the country had coined a name, "SAKAWA," connoting some magical powers associated with the internet.
The Vice President thus charged the Forum to give more attention to the issues of cyber crimes, and come out with guidelines for the use of the internet, as well as deterring regulations that will commit the internet service providers to ensure responsibility for protecting the use of the service from criminal activities.
The initiatives would be essential for the effective and efficient response to computer security incidents, widespread security vulnerabilities, and incident co-ordination in the various sectors of the Ghanaian economy.
All over the world, cyber crime has become a threat to the economies of the highly industrialised, middle income status, and the developing nations. As a result, most countries have formed computer response teams (CERT) to monitor unauthorised entry into government websites, as well as ensure that security and business continuity activities are coordinated in various organisations
Statistics released by the World Conference Board-Consumer Internet Barometer, indicate that cyber fraud incidents are occurring more frequently with more serious results all over the world.
For instance 41 per cent internet consumers are buying products less online because of privacy concerns, while 13 per cent have been victims of identity theft, and as a result have become fed-up with transactions on the internet.
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