Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, is promising an aggressive rehabilitation of Community ICT Centers at all the district levels across the country.

She has consequently directed all government agencies that have taken over these ICT Centers to immediately vacate them.

The minister gave the directive after inspecting one of the dilapidated Community ICT Centers in Namong in the Afigya Kwabre District in the Ashanti Region.

She told journalists shortly after the inspection that she is not happy with the poor maintenance culture by the Assemblies.

She had already visited a number of broken down facilities across the country and has promised to fix them.

“We can’t just continue to throw good money away and then spend another sum renovating and re-equipping so that the people run it down or steal the equipment. It is a resource that we are building for the communities’ use. Our children need it – our young people need it and so the government will find the resources to renovate it,” Mrs Owusu-Ekuful, said.

“The Ministry of Communications and GIFEC will build the facility and equip it. It is the duty of the Assemblies to maintain it. We gave it to several of them to maintain. Many of them are in this state. We will find the money to renovate it but we will look for officials to come and sit here and man and equip it properly like we’ve done for others”, she added.

The minister said her outfit will look for partnerships that will better manage the community ICT centres.

“It is a shame if we sit down and allow monies government has invested in structures like this to go completely waste. I think this is where it ends. We will renovate and open it for use to train our children in IT skills which they need.

“They will be used as e-Service Centers for anybody who wants to access government services to come to utilize it. Even the ongoing national ID can utilize these facilities because they already have internet capabilities. We will fix it for them to also use and going forward, we will maintain it so that our children can also benefit from it”, she stressed.