Jul 29, 2012 at 3:10pm

The Network of Communication Reporter (NCR) has commended the Late President John Mills for the immense improvement the Telecom and ICT sector witnessed under the rather short three-and-half-year watch of His Excellency the late president.

A statement signed by the Dean of the Network, Charles Benoni Okine said, “news of the President’s death on Tuesday, July 24, 2012 came to us as a shock and we express our deepest condolences to the former first lady Dr. Mrs. Ernestina Naadu Mills and the family of our late president.”

It observed that under late President Mills’ watch, the industry regulatory environment has improved immensely with the National Communication Authority (NCA) becoming more consumer focused than ever.

The statement noted that there was a successful implementation of the SIM Registration policy, and Mobile Number Portability system, which has given the power of choice to the subscriber, are examples of remarkable improvement in the regulatory environment.

The network also noted among other things the implementation of the fixed levy on all incoming international calls which they described as very remarkable, given the huge additional revenue of over US$150 million it has generated for this country since June 2010.

“We note with delight that under the watch not the late President, the country’s e-governance project took off with a US$150 million dollar contract awarded to Huawei to provide last mile infrastructure for the delivery of broadband access nationwide,” it said.

NCR also lauded the late president for continuing with the one laptop per child policy, which has seen several children across the country having access to ICT for the first time in the lives.

The statement further mentioned that in the last few days of the president on earth, the Ministry of Communication commissioned the first ever Digital Divide Study to capture the statistics on the extent of rural-urban and male-female divide in the ICT and telephony access.

“It is our opinion that His Excellency’s policies, programmes and initiatives have set the tone for the much awaited economic boom for this country given that ICT and telecommunication is the key to modern development the world over,” the statement said.

NCR said as it bids the late President farewell, it congratulates and welcomes the newly sworn in President John Mahama with the hope that he will continue from where the late president left off.

“We trust that as former Minister of Communication and as someone credited with some of the remarkable developments in the communications, the new president will see the good initiatives of the late president for the sector to their logical conclusion,” the statement said.


By: Lorrencia Adam/Citifmonline.com/Ghan a