President John Dramani Mahama has launched the National Cyber Security Awareness Month with a call on all stakeholders to work to make the digital space safe.
“Cyber security is everyone’s business. Our duty as a government is to provide clear policy, strong institutions and enforcement. The private sector’s duty is to invest in cyber resilience and protect consumers’ data.
“Civil society must advocate responsibly, educating and holding government and institutions accountable. For our citizens, they must stay informed and alert on every occasion. If we all played our roles well, we can build a cyber-resilient Ghana,” President Mahama outlined.
He made this observation in Accra yesterday when he launched the month-long awareness creation initiative.
It was on the theme “Building a Safe, Informed and Accountable Digital Space”.
The President also used the occasion to inaugurate an 18-member Joint Cyber Security Committee, made up of personnel from all security and intelligence agencies, to collaborate with the Cyber Security Authority to coherently coordinate measures on national defence against cyber threats.
According to President Mahama, in as much as the opportunities in the digital space abound, the threats are real and steps must be taken to curb them.
“If we act wise, decisively and inclusively, Ghana can be a continental leader in secured digital innovation. Let us remember that digitalisation without security is unsustainable, innovation without responsibility is dangerous and opportunity without inclusion is unjust,” President Mahama stated.
Ghana, he said, was not immune to the volatility of cyber-related crimes as the space expands; a reason he said government was pursuing digital transformation as a key component of the national development policy.
In view of the above, he said four flagship initiatives – One Million Coders programme, the Digital Job Initiative, the US$50 million Fintech growth Fund, and the 24-hr Economy Policy – have been rolled out since he assumed office in January this year.
A signatory to international treaties and a wide range domestic interventions, President Mahama noted that all would come to naught if the systems do not work, the people are not informed and vigilant because they are the first line of defence.
He, therefore, urged that the education, through public awareness campaigns, went down to ensure the people, irrespective of status, understood the risk of the digital world and knew how to stay safe.
The Minister for the Interior, Alhaji Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, on his part, said the cyber space threat had become more precarious as the online space has become the converging point for all human activities.
He said crime investigation, intelligence gathering, capacity building, awareness creation and inter-agency collaboration have become the areas the security agencies were focused on to curb the cyber security threats Ghana faced.
Samuel Nartey George, the Minister for Communications, Digital Technology and Innovation, said with Ghana ranked 15th country with the most social media presence globally, the need to educate the citizenry on how to stay safe online had become pressing than ever before.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
