Ghana’s Parliament is expected to ratify the convention on Cybercrime adopted the United Nations. 

Known as the Budapest Convention, Ghana is the third African country to sign on to the law since it was adopted.

The main objective of the Budapest Convention is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The law after ratification is expected to guide the country on developing strategies to deal with cyber-attacks.

Speaking at the climax of the Cybersecurity Awareness and a safer Digital Ghana campaign Month, President Akufo-Addo assured that the government is making efforts to push for parliament to ratify the deal when the House resumes.

"As a government, we have signed both the Malabo and Budapest Convention which sets the tone for Ghana to implement initiatives on cybersecurity. I’m happy to announce that when parliament resumes, one of the first sets of laws to ratify is the Budapest Convention.

As you're all aware, Ghana is the third nation on the African continent to sign these two conventions and the government is committed to implementing it to the latter" President Akufo-Addo said.

As part of the convention, Ghana will set up a Cyber Security academy as well as a National Cyber Security Authority to oversee the operations of all agencies in the digital value chain.

On his part, National Cyber Security Advisor, Albert Antwi-Boasiako disclosed that due to the progress made by the country in fighting cybercrime, member nations from the ECOWAS region have approached Ghana through the Ministry of Communications to support in establishing similar systems in their countries.

"Our colleagues from other West African countries have approached the ministry of communication and have requested Ghana's support to establish similar systems. Indeed the World Bank and ECOWAS are adopting a similar model to establish the ECOWAS cybersecurity technical working group to advance cybersecurity development in the sub-region" he stated.

Mr Antwi-Boasiako used the occasion to acknowledge the support of major development partners including the European Union and the World Bank on the progress made so far.
However, he admitted that there is a huge task ahead due to the growing demand for new technologies across the globe.

"We need to scale up our efforts to protect our critical national information infrastructure, we need to address existing gaps in our Cybercrime and cybersecurity legislation, we need to speed up capacity building efforts for public officials, we need to intensify our public awareness Creation effort and most importantly, we need to operationalize our international cooperation efforts in addressing the challenges that we face as a country," he concludes.