The Appearing Director-Common of the Nationwide Data Expertise Company (NITA), Ing. Dr. Mark Oliver-Kebber, defined that the continuing improvement of the proposed NITA invoice follows a “novel” exploratory session course of, which he stated has contributed to public misconceptions in regards to the standing and content material of the invoice.
He stated the method taken by the company included intensive stakeholder engagement early within the coverage improvement course of, incorporating enter from business gamers, regulators and different stakeholders earlier than the formal drafting stage.
“From the start, we took an exploratory method to present it a shot,” he defined. “That is being celebrated. So we have to perceive the novelty of this course of.”
He famous that whereas the intensive session course of is aimed toward strengthening the coverage framework, it additionally implies that not all suggestions will probably be included into the ultimate proposal.
“We can’t settle for each proposal, or we’ll have a whole listing of everybody’s requests,” he stated, including that the method requires balancing competing pursuits.
He additional defined that one of many key challenges in drafting the invoice was managing regulatory overlap between businesses such because the Information Safety Fee and the Nationwide Communications Authority (NCA).
In response to Dr. Mark Oliver Kevor, these overlaps must be clearly addressed to ascertain applicable regulatory boundaries inside Ghana’s ICT ecosystem.
He famous that ICT regulation is complicated and requires coordination between completely different regulators, because the sector is “horizontal” and spans a number of industries, together with agriculture, healthcare and different digital providers.
“Now we have loads of different areas that you just’re coping with, so we want time to synthesize every part that is coming in and provide you with what I name a negotiated provide,” he stated.
Dr. Mark Oliver-Kebber additionally revealed that there was public confusion as as to if the invoice had already been submitted to Parliament, stressing that the method continues to be ongoing and has not but reached the formal legislative stage.
He stated that after session with stakeholders, the proposal could be despatched to the Cupboard, then to the Ministry of the Lawyer Common to draft a legislation, and eventually to Parliament for consideration and additional public enter.
He added that a few of the confusion stemmed from a misunderstanding of NITA’s mandate, noting that though NITA was established as an ICT regulator, its regulatory perform had not been absolutely exercised over time.
“…So I believe this course of confused lots of people due to its novel nature. Some even recommended that this legislation had already been handed by Congress. Some even thought it had already been launched to Congress due to the novel nature of the method.”
And that is the readability we have been making an attempt to attain for a while. In truth, others have been additionally complicated what we have been proposing with our present mandates and regulatory actions. We should perceive that Act 771 created NITA because the ICT Regulatory Authority. However all this time, its regulatory obligations have been dormant,” he defined.
He defined that the proposed reforms are aimed toward strengthening NITA’s supervisory position, significantly in overseeing authorities ICT tasks all through their lifecycle, from planning and implementation to testing and deployment.
The Appearing Director-Common additionally indicated that discussions have been ongoing on whether or not NITA must be empowered to license ICT professionals, arguing that such issues rely upon how data techniques are outlined throughout the broader ICT framework.
Additional refinements are anticipated to be made to the NITA invoice because it progresses by way of the remaining levels of the coverage and legislative course of.
