The National Cyber Security Centre through the Ministry of Communications has organised a training workshop for judiciary on cybercrime and electronic evidence for judges of the Supreme Court.

This forms part of activities lined up for the celebration of this year’s National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) on Tuesday October 23, 2018.

Opening the ceremony, the Minister for Communications Hon. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful stressed on the need to cooperate with international partners in tackling cybercrime; reiterating the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s commitment to the ratification of the Budapest Convention to discuss the domestic legal issues involving cybercrime and the operationalisation of the Budapest Convention in the context of Ghana’s domestic legislation.

“Ghana’s accession to the Budapest Convention is borne out of a particular judicial imperative-the need to be able to facilitate cross border investigations and prosecutions of cybercrime cases especially at the time when our citizens are actively using digital services and platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram which are hosted in other jurisdictions”.

She indicated that Ghana has undertaken a number of initiatives aimed at formalising the economy through digitalisation. These include the Paperless Port, the National Identification System, National Property Addressing System, Mobile Money Interoperability System, e-procurement and e-justice project which seeks to digitalise the work of the judiciary in the administration of justice. Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful noted, the private sector including the telecommunication and the financial sectors.

“For instance, in the first week of March 2018, MTN alone announced a revenue jump 23.3% and GH 9.3 million daily with 7.1 million active mobile money subscribers”. She said.

Giving the state of cybercrime in Ghana, the Communications Minister noted that cybercrime has become one of the most common but pervasive crimes that Ghana is experiencing at the moment.

“Apart from the various forms of cybercrimes such as cyber fraud that we all know, the role of computers and the internet in facilitating other contemporary and emerging crimes including human trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorism and money laundering cannot be overlooked. Consequently, our country’s significant strides in ICT development are being undermined by the growing menace of cybercrime and therefore capacity building is urgently required to address these trends.” She added.

She noted that the training organised by the Ministry of Communication in collaboration with the council of Europe under the GLACY+ project has enhanced their understanding especially in application of law to cyber cases.

The Minister revealed that research has proven that, judge’s understanding of information technology, cybercrime issues as well as matters pertaining to digital evidence affect their rulings on cases. This she said was because of the relatively new nature of the domain of cybercrime to the court.

“It is therefore important that we build our capacity in this area to enhance our justice delivery.”

She pledged the Ministry’s commitment to further engage the judicial service to provide cyber security training for staff of the judicial service towards a cyber secured culture.