The minister for communication, Dr Edward K Omane Boamah has announced government’s plans to pursue a vigorous national broadband infrastructure development programme to reach all parts of the country to provide enough bandwidth capacity for ICT deployment.

According to Mr Boamah, this will open up business and employment opportunities as well as promote research, innovation, training and skills acquisition.

Dr Omane Boamah was speaking at the 4th National Girls in ICT celebration at the GNAT hall in Ho. 

According to him, as part of the program, the construction of the eastern corridor fibre optic transmission network, which stretches from Ho to Bawku with a link from Yendi to Tamale is being embarked upon to light up the entire eastern portions of the country which will bring connectivity to and improve access to data, voice and video services to the more than 120 rural communities along the route.

The Minister said the e - Government platform project is deploying LTE technology and will further expand the broadband framework for the deployment of ICT Applications and usage in all sectors of the economy.

He said with the availability of broadband infrastructure, Government expects to rapidly expand access to quality education and place technology at the centre in building a knowledge-based economy and an information-rich society in Ghana.

“I wish to add that while Government continues to encourage young girls to consider technology as a career option, the responsibility must be shared among all parents, educators, industry players and children themselves. Let us therefore in our roles encourage our children to get on board the ICT agenda” he said

In her welcome address, the Volta Regional Minister Helen Adjoa Ntosu said it is a great honour for the region to be chosen to host the event which aims to advance and deepen the economic and social empowerment of young women in the country and also to explore strategies and opportunities by which information and communication technologies may be used to improve women’s economic outlook while creating a conducive environment for learning and teaching the subject “our young girls must be exposed to ICT education very early in life, so that the culture, orientation and requisite ICT skills would be installed in them”.

Girls in ICT Day has rapidly grown into a global movement with an estimated 3,500 events organised in 140 countries, reaching 11,000 girls and Ghana is one of the countries being counted. For the year 2015, 936 girls in the Volta region have had the opportunity to participate in the program.