The government says it has since 2017 installed 10,000 CCTV cameras across the country to help the Police deal with criminal activities.
He disclosed this at a public lecture on the digital economy of the country at Ashesi University, today, Tuesday, November 2, 2021.
”In many advanced countries, the pervasiveness of CCTV cameras imposes some restraint on potential criminals. You are likely to be caught if you break the law. This is why we have installed 10,000 CCTV cameras since 2017. The cameras have helped the police to solve a number of crimes such as the arrest of suspects in a recent bullion van robbery. At the beginning of 2017 we only had 800 CCTV cameras in operation,” he stated.
Dr. Bawumia said the government’s digitization drive has helped in enhancing the work of the security agencies.
He further revealed that the government was on schedule to digitize the operations of the Lands Commission to make it easy to acquire, transfer and register title to land.
”We are also going to formalize the agricultural sector by registering all cocoa farmers and their farms as well as labelling the cocoa from each farm to enable tracing. The work is about 40% complete. We will do the same for food crop farmers and digitize fertilizer distribution by the middle of next year.
We are also going to formalize the fisheries sector by registering all fishermen and digitize pre-mix fuel distribution to our fishermen. The operations of the school feeding program are also being digitized to enhance its efficiency as well as facilitate monitoring. It is expected that the work on this will be completed by the end of this year,” he said.
On the issue of cyber security, he said ”…we are also acutely aware that we must pay attention to cybersecurity. Ghana’s Cybersecurity Act, 2020 (Act 1038) has become necessary because of the rapid digitization of the economy, coupled with the high rate of cyber-crimes and other cybersecurity incidents in the country.
The act will promote the development of cybersecurity and regulate cybersecurity activities in Ghana. It focuses on the protection of Ghana’s Critical Information Infrastructure. Given the efforts of Government through the Ministry of Communications and Digitization, Ghana’s cybersecurity ranking is now 89.6% compared to 32% in 2017.”
By: Rainbowradoonline.com/Ghana
