<<Print>>

Government has been urged to take advantage of the internet and social media to provide more information on governance to the people. In addition, government must adopt a culture of tolerance for free expression on social media as a way of engaging with the citizenry and deepening democracy, instead of allowing government officials to �police� the internet. Dr Etse Sikanku, a lecturer at the School of Communications Studies, University of Ghana, made the call during a stakeholders� dialogue hosted by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in partnership with the Ministry of Communications, National Communication Authority, (NCA), National Information Technology Agency (NITA), Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications (GCT) and the Internet Society of Ghana (ISOC). The roundtable meeting was held to explore ways the internet could be used to enable citizens to freely participate in a transparent and accountable governance. Dr Sikanku explained that giving people more access to the use of internet meant a lot for �internet freedom,� which also transcended from the availability to the use of internet without any inhibition. He said both citizens and journalists must access the internet, which had now given more power to people, to help them track what elected officials and leaders were doing, and to make input into parliamentary debates, and other government policies. Mr Sulmana Braimah, Executive Director of MFWA, said the dialogue follows the establishment of the National Civil Society Coalition of Internet Freedom last year, which agreed to meet to discuss and help find solutions to issues of access to internet, affordability, the capacity of people to access the internet, as a way of helping promote national development. In speech read for Dr Edward Omane Boamah, Minister of Communications, Madam Patricia Dovie Simpson, Director in charge of Research, Statistics and Information Management, said internet freedom has been a priority policy for governments of many developed countries and Ghana would ensure that it citizens had access to the internet as an open platform on which to innovate and learn. The Ministry will soon launch a strategy aimed at securing Ghana�s cyber space and strengthening the country�s ability to mitigate cyber security incidents.