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Developing Information Society in Ghana: How Far?

Article in The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries · July 2011
DOI: 10.1002/j.1681-4835.2011.tb00336.x

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EJISDC (2011) 47, 8, 1-20 1

DEVELOPING INFORMATION SOCIETY IN GHANA: HOW FAR?

Godfred Frempong
CSIR-Science and Technology Policy Institute
Ghana
goddie58@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
Increasingly the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is underpinning
every socio-economic activity and developing knowledge-based economy and information
society. The opportunities that access to and use of ICTs offer are numerous. The need for
creating an information society is not based only on the availability of ICT services, but more
importantly, their usage by the citizenry which contributes to building knowledge. Using
primary data from Ghana, the paper discusses the access and usage of ICTs by individuals
and household in three broad spatial categories namely: metropolitan cities, other urban
towns and rural areas. The analysis is based on over 1200 households and individuals
surveyed from the three areas. The results from the analysis and discussion show that Ghana
has made some achievements in increasing access and usage of ICT services at both the
household and individual levels. However, compared to more efficient markets in Africa,
much remains to be done due to identified weakness in policy regime, market failures and
weak ICT skills capability. Consequently, the paper advocates for a strong regulatory regime,
coupled with increased competitiveness in the market and acceleration of the implementation
of the ICT Policy to facilitate the advancement of the information society in Ghana.

KEYWORDS: Society, ICT, Development, Policy, Ghana

1 INTRODUCTION
Increasingly the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is underpinning
every socio-economic activity in knowledge-based economy and information society. The
opportunities that access to and use of ICTs offer are numerous. The quotation from the
World Information Society drums this strongly.

The ability to use ICTs is a key skill that increasingly determines the
employability and standard of living of many citizens. Access to ICTs
now drives access to information and knowledge, which in turn, can
decide access to wealth and affluence. A society in which a significant
part of the population feels excluded from the benefits that ICT access
brings is a society that is fundamentally insecure, at peril of social
disintegration. (ITU 2007: 13).

The fear of exclusion has resulted in the development of programmes and initiatives
that should significantly increase access and use of ICTs by the majority of the people.
Unfortunately, many people, especially those in the developing countries are still not part of
the digital revolution. They have been constrained by inadequacy of ICT infrastructure and
access to the service. Where the service is available, its quality leaves much to be desired.
Many countries in sub- Saharan Africa have a low ICT development index (IDI)
compared to the OECD or other developed countries. For example, in 2007, the IDI of Ghana
was 1.63, Kenya, 1.62, Senegal 1.38 and Nigeria 1.38. In the case of some developed
countries, IDI for Sweden is 7.5, United Kingdom 6.78, Germany 6.61 and Portugal 5.47.
However, African countries are the areas where access and use of ICTs are critical to reduce

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poverty and create wealth. Annan (1999) argues that being cut off from basic
telecommunications services is a hardship comparable to other deprivations such as jobs,
shelter, food, health care and potable water. He argues further that the capacity to receive,
download and share information through electronic networks, the freedom to communicate
freely within and across countries should become a reality for all people.
In spite of the explosion of mobile telephones in Africa, the continent still lags behind
in the world‟s total population of mobile telephones. Africa has the lowest mobile teledensity
of 28 mobile telephones per 100 subscribers, Asia has 38 and Oceania 72 (ITU, 2009a).
Consequently, there may be a significant number of people who have not used telephones
before and these people according to Annan (1999) are suffering from one the worst
deprivations in the world.
The two World Summits on the Information Society strongly emphasized the need for
every individual, community and nation to have access, utilize, and to share information and
knowledge in order to bolster socio-economic development and improved quality of life. It
has become crucial for every country to develop the necessary infrastructure and structures to
enable its citizens to participate in the information society.
Ghana is among the first African countries to liberalize its ICT sector in the early
1990s and since then it has been integrating ICT into its development agenda through the
enunciation of policies, strategies and programs. For example, the government launched an
ICT policy in 2003 with the objective of engineering an ICT-led socio-economic
development process with the potential of transforming Ghana into information-rich,
knowledge-based economy and society.
In addition, there is the National Telecommunication Policy, which is to contribute
towards the achievement of the objective of the national ICT policy – movement towards
information society. The Telecom Policy has universal access objective of a telephone
penetration of at least 25% of the country‟s population by 2010 and this will include at least
10% penetration in rural areas.
It has licensed six companies licensed to provide mobile telephone services in the
country, of which five namely; Tigo Ghana Limited, MTN Ghana, Vodafone Ghana, Kasapa
Telecom, Zain are operational. The sixth company (Glo Mobile) is yet to commence business.
About 114 companies have licensed to provide internet services. Similarly, 176 Data VSAT
operators have been granted licenses to operate and a host of companies providing ancillary
services to the sector.
The critical questions, are how far has Ghana gone on the super highway to the
information society? How effective have the policies been in improving access and usage of
ICT services by the people? What can be done to engender the process to facilitate the
achievement of the government‟s ICT development vision?
This paper using survey data, will assess the level of deployment and utilisation of
ICT services by individuals and households in the country. It will also compare Ghana
achievement‟s to other countries in Africa and draw experiences to facilitate the movement
towards information society.

2 INFORMATION SOCIETY IN CONTEXT

The development of ICTs has caused a shift in the global development discourse – a shift
from an industrial age to an information society, where the source of wealth and power is
found in a different type of capital: intellectual and creative ideas packaged and distributed in
different forms over information networks (Venturelli, 2002). This is expected to stimulate
economic growth and productivity, create new economic activities, jobs and improve the
quality of life (Van Audenhove, Burgelman, Nulens and Cammaerts 1999).

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The concept of the information society has gained much currency in contemporary
development discourse with the initiatives beginning in America and Japan (Servaes, and
Burgelman, 2000). Since then, it assumed an international dimension which culminated in the
two World Summits on Information Society held in 2003 and 2005 in Geneva and Tunis
respectively. The two summits were organized to address the general recognition of the
pervasiveness of ICTs and the fear that developing countries may be left behind in the
emerging information society (ITU, 2007).
The information society emphasizes the increasing importance of information as a
crucial ingredient of society. In information society the emphasis is on digital networks that
can effectively and efficiently store, retrieve, process and deliver information of crucial
socio-economic and cultural importance. Ricci (2000) argues further that the significance of
these developments have become a core element of any prospective analysis, well beyond the
economic or industrial scope. He also emphasizes a point that society is increasingly
dependent on information accessed through technologies (Qureshi, 2006) and it is
increasingly important that the necessary structures are put in place to reduce the digital
divide. Banuls and Samleran (2007) argue that the changes in the world economy and
globalization have accelerated the transmission and use of information and knowledge. In this
context, geographical proximity seems to have lost any relevance.
An information society connotes that there should be no inequalities or exclusion in
the access and usage of ICTs. The existence of inequalities is normally referred as the digital
divide - it is usually the gap that exists between individuals, households, business and
geographic areas with regard to the opportunities to access ICTs and use of the Internet for
different activities (OECD 2001).
Inequalities in access (digital divide) are not only caused by digital exclusion, but
income, language, technological and socio-cultural issues are also influencing the dynamics
of the digital divide (Kaigo, 2005). It restricts people and countries from exploiting the
potential benefits of information and knowledge and lead to circumstances where citizens
who require greater access to ICTs which can potentially help them out of their deprivation
are denied access and usage (Queau, 2002). Greater access and usage of ICTs can provide
windows of opportunities to reduce poverty and deprivation which are deeply entrenched in
the economies of developing countries.
Mariscal (2005) argues that digital divide has become prominent in global discourse,
but seemingly, consensus has not been reached in designing the appropriate policy to reduce
the divide. However, failure to address the divide has serious implications for developing an
information society in any country.

3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR INFORMATION SOCIETY

The premise of this paper is to review and discuss how information society is being
developed in Ghana. For this purpose we adapt and adopt the ITU framework for evolution to
an information society to analyze the situation in Ghana. The original framework is hinged on
three key stages namely: ICT readiness, ICT usage and ICT capability. However, it fails to
recognize the importance of a strong policy regime which could facilitate the development of
each of the evolution stages to enable the process effectively contribute to the attainment of
an information society. Consequently, in adopting this framework, the policy environment
has been added.
The existence and combination of the three stages will lead to ICT impacts. As argued
by ITU (2009a), the third stage i.e. ICT capability is very important in achieving the
information society as one has to possess the requisite skills to successfully use and apply
ICTs. It is further argued that the three stages are interlinked as one cannot use ICT without
the existence of the infrastructure and expertise.

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ICT readiness refers to the ICT infrastructure existing in a particular country. A

widespread infrastructure provides opportunity for many people to have access to the service.
The quality of the infrastructure is equally important, so as to support multi ICT services and
provide service alternatives which can be utilized to support socio-economic development.
ICT use determines the extent to which the technology has been adopted by the
people and integrated into their daily activities. At the ICT adoption stage, there are increases
in the use of ICTs in terms of numbers, increased level of intensity and sophistication of use
(ITU (2009a).
In the case of ICT skills they are necessary for effective utilization of ICT services.
Without the skills capability, it will be difficult to exploit and benefit from the potential of the
new technologies. Therefore, it is an important component for assessing the evolution to an
information society. The impact of ICTs depends extensively on the availability of skills and
knowledge and the capability to use ICTs efficiently and effectively (ITU, 2009a). The paper
concentrates on the development of the three stages (ICT readiness, ICT usage and ICT
capability) of the framework for evolution to information society.

Figure 1: Stages in Evolution Towards Information Society

ICT Policy Environment

ICT Readiness ICT Use ICT Impact

(Infrastructure, (Intensity) (outcomes)
Access)

ICT Capability
(Skills)

Source: Adapted from ITU, 2009

A crucial external issue that drives the whole evolution to an information society is
the existence of a favorable ICT policy which will provide the framework for the holistic
development of the industry. The ICT policy can positively or negatively impact on the
development of each of the three stages. The importance of the policy framework to drive the
achievement of an information society led to many countries to develop initiatives to help
them achieve that status. For African countries, the Economic Commission of Africa through
its Africa Information Society Initiative assisted many countries to develop national ICT
policies to guide them to develop an information society (Economic Commission for Africa,
2008). In view of this, the policy environment needs to be assessed to see its effectiveness in
facilitating the achievement of an information society.

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4 ANALYSIS OF SURVEY RESULTS

Figure 1 provides the key stages to an information society which is ICT Readiness, ICT Use
and ICT Capability. This section presents the analysis of a survey on exploitation of ICTs by
individuals and households conducted in 2008 in the country1. For the survey, a very rigorous
approach was adopted to arrive at the sample frame and the enumeration areas. The selection
of the study area was based on the 2000 National Population Census enumeration area (EA).
The EA frame was split into three categories, major urban, other urban and rural. Enumerator
areas (EAs) were sampled for each stratum using probability proportional to size (PPS) from
national census sample frames. Consequently, 40% of the EAs were selected from the major
urban areas, while 30% each was selected from the other urban and rural areas respectively.
The sampling frames were constructed through listing all households within an EA and
households were then sampled using simple random sampling. In all 1,200 households
selected across the country were interviewed. For each of the households, its head and a
visitor who was over 18 years and had spent the previous night with the household were
interviewed.
Data was directly captured using PDA on indicators and the use of the PDA was to
ensure quicker data analysis. Ethical issues were considered. The respondents were briefed on
the survey and were alerted with their rights to answer or refuse any question they were not
comfortable with.

4.1 ICT Readiness (Access)

One of the key indicators for the evolution towards an information society is ICT readiness,
which translates into the existence of a strong ICT infrastructure which will then provide. The
discussion will therefore, concentrate on access to ICT services by the households and
individuals.

4.1.1 Access on Gender Basis

There have been strong arguments that access and use of ICT services and technology in
general is not gender-neutral, and that it tends to favor men more than woman (Hafkin, 2002).
There is also the concern about the decline of women pursuing computing and information
technology courses in the universities (Crump, Logan and McIlroy, 2007) and suggest male
domination and non-neutrality in terms of access to ICT services. However, from this survey,
there was a near parity among the men and women respondents as 49% were females while
the rest were males.

4.1.2 Access to Telephone Service

Access to telephone service is an important step towards its utilization and also epitomizes
the penetration of the service to enable greater number of the population to have the
opportunity to use the service.

4.1.2.1 Fixed Line Telephones

In the past, global universal service/access policies were built around fixed line telephones.
Also until recently, fixed line telephone was the main infrastructure for internet deployment.
However, the development in the wireless technology has reduced the dependence on fixed
line telephones for personal and small firm access to ICT services. To find the extent of fixed
line telephone penetration, the respondents were asked about the availability of the service in
their homes.
1
The data used in the analysis was obtained from an unpublished country survey from Research ICT Africa
network on Household and Individual ICT Usage in Ghana. It was funded by the IDRC under the ACACIA
Program.

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Figure 2: Penetration Fixed Line Telephone

Rural
3%

Other Urban
41%
Major Urban
56%

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

From the survey, over half of the fixed line telephones subscribers in the country were
in the major urban (56%) and other urban (41%) areas of the country. Only 3% of the
subscribers were available in the rural areas. In effect, as far as access to fixed line telephones
is concerned, there is a great internal digital divide between urban and rural areas. It has
always been urban-biased and prevalent in towns and cities of economic importance
(Frempong, 2005) and excludes the majority of Ghanaians who live in the rural areas.

4.1.2.2 Mobile Telephones

The deployment of mobile telephones is also skewed towards the urban areas of the country,
but relatively better than the deployment of fixed line telephones. The urban-based nature of
mobile telephone deployment is not only peculiar to Ghana, but it is an African issue, where
there is a significant uptake of mobile telephones, but highly concentrated in urban areas
(Gillwald, 2008). Consequently, there is the need to design programs to deploy the service
across the country, especially, the unserved peri-urban and rural areas. However, the
universal access policy may have improved rural access to telephone services. For example,
Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC) has constructed 39 Common
Telecom Facilities in 2008, which enabled telecommunication operators to extend their
services to about 273 communities (ITU, 2009b).

4.1.2.3 Public Telephones

Public telephone is loosely defined to include privately operated communication centers,
mobile telephone kiosks and public payphones run by Vodafone Telecom. The level of
patronage of public telephones by the respondents was explored as the service serves as an
important access to point for those who do not personally subscribe to the services. High
patronage (53%) of public phones was in the rural areas, 31% in the other urban towns, while
the least use was in the major urban areas (16%).

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Figure 3: Use of Public Phones

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

From the data, public telephones provide the main access to the participation in the
digital revolution for the rural communities. The recognition of the large market for this
service has compelled Vodafone Ghana to relocate most of its pay phones to the rural areas.

4.1.2.4 Household Access to Computer and Internet

The internet has become an important infrastructure in participating and utilizing the
opportunities of the digital revolution. Technological convergence and the development of
multi-media services and increasing business applications of the internet have made access
and usage a fundamental issue in the participation in the information society.
Personal computers/laptops 2 are largely, the main equipment used to exploit the
potential of the internet and networked services. Therefore, it is important to determine the
level of ownership of computers in the survey. From the survey, only 5.0% of the sample
from Ghana had a PC/laptop at home and this formed one-third of the situation in South
Africa. Though there has been slight improvement in the ownership of PC from an earlier
survey which showed that only 4% of the sample had computer/laptops at home (Frempong,
Esselaar, Stork and Anyimadu, 2005)), the fact still remains that ownership of the technology
is very poor in the country. In spite of the global fall in prices and a seeming burgeoning
trade in used computers in the country, these have not significantly improved ownership of
computers in the country. Becoming computer literate is one of the basic prerequisites of
participating in the digital revolution as well as achieving the objective of the national
ICT4AD Policy.
Regretfully, most of the household computers were not connected to the internet. The
survey showed that only 0.3% of the households in Ghana had internet connection at home.
This is far below countries such as South Africa (4.8%), Namibia (3.3%), Kenya (2.2%) and
Cameroon (1.18). This has serious implication in widespread use of the service at the
household level. Internet at home will help pupils/students, as well as parents to utilize the
vast potential of the service and its lack at residential level is a major limiting factor to
exploiting networked services. As will be discussed later, high cost of access has contributed
to the low internet connectivity in homes.
Given the low internet connection at homes, an attempt was made to identify sources
of internet by the respondent. Public access was the important source of internet usage. As
high as 77% of the sample patronized cyber/internet cafe to access internet services. It was

2
Increasingly modern handheld devices such as PDA and mobile telephones can be used to access internet
services. But in Ghana, the use of these devices for internet services is significantly low.

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followed by the work place (19.3%), while access through educational institutions was below
1% (see Figure 4). The data showed low connectivity in educational institutions, including
the tertiary institutions in the country. This is contrary to the situation in South Africa where
over 29% of the sample had internet access through their educational institutions. However, a
new development is that some companies have introduced wireless-based commercial
internet services on university campuses on pre-paid basis. This may improve connectivity
among students, but the limiting factor is students‟ ownership or access to wireless-enabled
laptops. The cost of laptops are still high, for example a reasonable priced laptop with basic
services is between US$600 – US$800 and not all students can afford this, and invariably,
restrict improving students‟ access to internet services.
The development of the wireless technology is providing alternative infrastructure for
internet access as many internet service providers have adopted the wireless platforms to
provide wireless broadband internet services. However, most of these services are
concentrated in the city centers where there is high concentration of businesses and offices
and in sprawling plush residential areas of the country.
Using mobile telephones to access internet was minimal in spite of the explosion in
the deployment of the service in the country. Mainly, cost of the service is one of the
militating factors. One pays US$0.002 to download 100 kilobyte of data from MTN Ghana,
while Tigo charges US$0.067 for the same data size. However, internet cafés averagely
charge US$1.3 for one hour of browsing, and depending on the speed available in the cafés
one, can download lots of data within that period. Consequently, it is relatively cheaper to
browse at internet cafés rather than using the mobile telephone platform.

Figure 4: Sources of Internet Access (%)

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

4.1.2.5 Access to Television and Radio

Television and radio still have crucial role to play in developing information society. For
example, television stations, especially in the developed countries have facilities for users to
check important information such as weather forecast, train and flight schedules among
others. Consequently, the survey tried to identify the widespread use of radio and television
in the country. The data showed that there were more mobile telephone subscribers than radio
and television with internet and fixed line telephones being the least of the ICT services
found in the households (see Figure 5). The situation of the dominance of the mobile

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telephones can be explained by fact that most households may own one television and radio
set, which can be watched by all. It is only in the rich neighborhoods where the respondents
may have more than one television and radio sets at home. However, it is possible that almost
of every household member above the age of 18 may posses mobile telephones and this could
increase the number of mobile telephone subscription in the country. Further, technological
development in the mobile telephony to support multi-media services, such as radio and
television is changing the landscape of owning radio. One can conveniently listen to news
and music from a mobile telephone handset and this may affect desire to own a radio set.

Figure 5: Ownership of Radio and Television

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

4.2 Usage of ICT Services

Achieving the level of information society is not only based on the availability of ICT
infrastructure and services. Equally important is the utilization of those services to facilitate
governance, social and economic activities. This section analyses the extent to which some of
the ICT services were utilized by the respondents in the survey.

4.2.1 Internet
One of the factors determining the importance of internet in the activities of the user is the
frequency of usage. The data from the survey indicated that about 33% of the households
used internet service everyday, 34% used it once a week, about 14% used the service at least
once a month and those who did not use the service at all was 19%. It can be deduced from
the data that only few people had integrated internet access into their daily socio-economic
activities. This has implication for developing a knowledge-based economy or society where
access to and use of information underlie every activity.
Equally important is what the service is used for and Table 1 summarizes the various
uses of the service by the respondents. Evidently, the main use of the Internet was for sending
and receiving emails (76%). Others of importance included browsing (46%), listening to
online news (28%) and to some extent downloading/listening to music (13%) and for
educational purposes (12%).
Using the internet for other purposes was minimal. Few households and individuals
used the service for on-line banking, payment of bills and participating in e-government and
e-commerce.
The popular use of the internet for emailing is confirmed by an earlier survey
conducted by Busy Internet. The findings of the showed that over a quarter of sample of 100
internet patrons used the service for email purposes (Busy Internet, 2002, cited by Foster,
Goodman, Osiakwan & Bertstein et.al, 2004).

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Table 1: Types of Uses of the Internet

Accessing the news 27.7
Sending and receiving emails 76.1
Playing online games 2.7
Browsing 46.2
Downloading / listening to music 12.6
Making Internet phone calls (VoIP) 2.6
Educational purposes 11.5
Online banking 0.2
Chatting & exchanging messages 1.1
Paying bills online using credit cards 0.2
Researching 4.7
Accessing local government services online 2.6
Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008
Please Note: Multiple responses were solicited

Though one cannot discount the importance of email services, crucial use, especially
for educational, financial, research and e-government purposes which can contribute to socio-
economic development, were not aggressively exploited by the respondents.
Factors identified by the respondents as militating against effective utilization of the

 No interesting content
service include:

 Lack of local language content

 Lack of knowledge about how to use the Internet
 Lack of access to a computer with Internet connection
 Slowness of Internet
 Cost of access
 Lack of time
 Others

The situation on internet usage was quite different in other countries. Though emails
remained the dominant usage, other important uses were made of the service. For example, in
Senegal almost 22% of the sample used the internet for educational purposes, 35% in South
Africa and only 5.4% in Ghana. Ghanaians have not gone beyond the traditional use of
internet (emailing) and therefore, the huge potential of the internet is being lost to majority.
Foster, et.al (2004) argue that most of these users of internet for email purposes use
international services as Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and others. Though this view by the Foster
et al may be old, the situation might not have changed considerably in the country, as these
international web services continue to be popular.

4.2.2 Mobile Telephony

To a question on the key preference for the use of mobile telephones, the respondents‟ main
proclivity was for voice communication (97%) and to some extent sending/receiving SMS
(45%). Only a few households used their mobile telephones for taking pictures (8%), video
recording (5%) and sending/receiving MMS (1%). Invariably, voice communication
dominates the mobile telephone usage, while the use of the service for data, was minimal. It
is being speculated that the introduction of 3G services in the country may increase usage of

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mobile telephone for data and multimedia services. However, cost is an important
determining factor for the increased use of 3G services.
The data from the survey showed that most calls received by the households were
basically for social purposes - from family members (58% ), 34% from friends and only 8%
were business related ( calls from business clients and suppliers). Similar pattern existed in
calls made by households and individuals. Less than 1% either called or received calls from
their employers, while none received calls or called their banks.
In terms of SMS, social (to family and friends) constituted about 90%, while about
7% had business content (clients and suppliers). Sending and receiving airtime credit was
also mainly social-based. About 88% sent airtime credit to family and friends, while 72%
received air time from the same source3. However, in other studies (Frempong, Essegbey and
Tetteh, 2007 and Frempong, 2009) mobile telephones were used as strategic tools to facilitate
business development and economic activities.

4.2.3 ICT Expenditures

Expenditure is one of the important factors in determining the level of usage and exploitation
of ICT services by an individual or household for social or economic activities. It also
provides an indicator on the rate of return on investment by ICT service providers – an
incentive for investors to commit more resources to develop the service. The level of
expenditure is also determine the extent of intensity of usage and indication of the
pervasiveness of ICTs in socio-economic development. On the other hand, it can also
epitomize the high cost of the service, since an expensive but important service tends to take
a large part of consumers income.
As can be seen from Figure 6, internet attracted the highest level of expenditure from
the respondents. The average monthly expenditure on internet was US$41, fixed line
telephone expenditure was almost US$13, mobile telephones was a little over US$10, while
the expenditures on public telephones was the least (almost US$3). Comparing the intensity
of usage (where a quarter of the respondents used the service daily) and the level of
expenditure point to the high cost of the service which has negative implication for effective
exploitation of the service.
Comparatively, Ghanaians spend a lot on internet service and was among the highest
in the selected African countries (see Figure 6). Again, the high expenditure has no
correlation with high frequency of usage, but may be (as will be illustrated later) due to high
cost of the service.

Figure 6: Average Monthly Household Expenditures (US$)

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

3
Sending and receiving airtime is a form of barter where airtime transfer can be used to pay for goods and
services.

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A subscriber pays an average of Gh¢0.0026 (approximately U$0.0018) per second to

terminate traffic into another mobile telephone network, while the termination charges for
fixed line to mobile telephone network is about Gh¢0.0023 (approximately US$0.0016). The
variation in prices might have compelled the fixed line telephone subscribers to terminate
more calls into mobile telephone network and thereby increasing the monthly expenditure.
Interestingly, interconnection charges between mobile to mobile networks are higher than
fixed line telephones to mobile network.

Figure 7: Comparative Monthly Average Household Expenditures on Internet (in US$)

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

In the case of public telephones, expenditure was lowest among the ICT services. The
respondents indicated that they spent US$2.54 a month on the service, which apparently was
the least patronized service in the country. Ironically, the expenditure on public telephones in
Ghana is among the highest among the selected African countries. Users of public telephones
in Mozambicans spent US$8 per month, and Ivoirians spent almost US$5 with the least of
US$0.43 from Ethiopia. A number of factors account for the low expenditures on public
telephones and these include: Inconvenient to use, not safe to use at night and poorly
maintained booth among others.
Further, the fall in mobile telephone call charges and introduction of recharge
vouchers in lower denominations have contributed to the low patronage of public telephones.
In Ghana, some recharge vouchers cost as low as US$0.7 and can be used for to make 6.48
minutes off-net calls, while the same amount will pay for 5 minutes talk time at a
communication or mobile telephone kiosk. Invariably, the lower recharge vouchers make it
affordable for many Ghanaians to use their mobile telephones instead of using a public access
point with the associated inconveniences.
Before the mobile telephone explosion in Africa, public telephone was the „darling
boy‟ for most Africa countries. Most universal access strategies were based on public
telephones. In Ghana, the policy was one payphone for every community of 500 people
(Atubra, Frempong and Henten, 2000). For Burkina Faso, it was a payphone within a distance
of 20km, while South Africa‟s goal was a telephone with 30 minutes of travelling distance
(ITU, 1998).
In the case of mobile telephone expenditures, Ghana was also among the highest in
the selected African countries. Ghana was fourth after South Africa, Cote d‟Ivoire and
Namibia. Averagely Ghanaians spent a little above US$10 a month on mobile telephones,
while subscribers in South Africa spent almost US$16.
A question was posed to the respondents to indicate how much they were willing pay
for mobile and fixed line telephone services should their disposable income increase. The
respondents were willing to pay far more for mobile telephones than fixed line telephones.

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Data from La Cote d‟Ivoire signified that subscribers were willing to pay almost US$20 for
mobile telephone usage, while for fixed lines, it was only US$6.25 per month. Similarly,
Ghanaians were prepared to spend almost US$13 a month on mobile telephones and a paltry
sum of US$0.56 on fixed line telephones.
The implication is that there is a huge demand for mobile telephone services and this
should provide impetus for the service providers to invest more in the sector to expand cover.
On the other hand, it also points to the decreasing importance of fixed line telephones in the
lives of the respondents.

4.3 ICT Skills and Capability

ICT skills 4 capability is an important component for building a knowledge economy by
fostering competitiveness, growth, employment, education and lifelong training (Lanvin and
Passman, 2008 ). Lanvin and Passman argue further that ICT skills are required to utilize the
potentials of ICTs and explore diverse opportunities for conducting business and
organizational processes, and to establish new businesses. Further, Lanvin and Králik (2009)
added that e-skills contribute to better jobs and a key contributor to digital and social
inclusion.
Education is one of the major steps at building ICT capacity due to the fact that the
technology, especially computer and internet are knowledge intensive and require appreciable
level of literacy to acquire the skills to use and appreciate the technology (Frempong and
Imoro, 2006). Consequently, the survey explored the literacy level of the respondents.
A relatively large percentage (40%) of the respondents had primary education, while
secondary education constituted 28% (see Figure 8). Tertiary education consisting of
bachelors degree was 5%, while Master/PhD was 0.5%. A quarter of the respondents had no
formal education. The inference from the data is that about 65% of the respondents had basic
and no formal education and points to the fact that only few people had the requisite
education that would enable them effectively exploit and use ICT services.

Figure 8: Educational Background of Respondents

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

Generally, the existence of a strong e-skill capability in Africa is very weak. From
Table 2, it is only South Africa whose e-skill index is above 1 and Kenya almost 1. The rest

4
The terms ICT skills and e-skills are synonymous and will be used interchangeably.

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of the selected countries, including Ghana (0.5) had e-skill index below 1. This is an
indication of the handicap of African countries to effectively exploit ICT opportunities to
enhance their socio-economic activities and more importantly participate in the information
society. It is therefore, imperative that mechanisms be established to build Ghana‟s ICT skills
capability to effectively use the service.

4.4 Policy Implications

The model for the evolution to an information society emphasized three important stages
namely: ICT readiness, ICT use and ICT skills capability. An effective development of all the
three stages will unleash the potentials of ICTs into the economy – knowledge economy. The
analysis in this paper has shown that Ghana has made an effort to develop the three stages to
achieve information-rich people and a knowledge based economy (Ghana Government, 2003).
Ghana compared relatively well with the selected African countries in some of the indicators
of the three stages towards the evolution an information society. However, realizing an
information society raises the need for addressing a number of issues, which include;
acceleration in the implementation ICT policies, development of ICT skills and improvement
in internet penetration among others.

Table 2: Household Survey Results Compared to Commonly Used E-Skills Indicators

Country UNDP5 Adult Literacy Rate6 Combined gross enrolment E-skills7
Educatio (% Aged 15 and ratio for primary, secondary index
n Index Older), 1995-2005 and tertiary education (%), (min=0,
2005 max=7)
Botswana 0.773 81.2 69.5 0.47
Cameroon 0.660 67.9 62.3 0.83
Cote d‟Ivoire 0.457 48.7 39.6 0.38
Ethiopia 0.380 35.9 42.1 0.11
Ghana 0.555 57.9 50.7 0.49
Kenya 0.693 73.6 60.6 0.99
Mozambique 0.435 38.7 52.9 0.08
Namibia 0.783 85.0 64.7 0.67
Rwanda 0.602 64.9 50.9 0.09
Senegal 0.394 39.3 39.6 0.56
South Africa 0.806 82.4 77.0 1.25
Source: Schmidt and Stork (2008)

4.4.1 Poor Implementation of ICT4AD and Ghana Telecom Policies

In Ghana two policies are driving ICT developments – ICT for Accelerated Development
(ICT4AD) Policy and National Telecom Policy (GTP). The ICT4AD Policy has the overall
objective of supporting an ICT-led socio-economic development process with the potential to
transform Ghana into a middle income, information-rich, and knowledge-based society
(Ghana Government, 2003). The orientation of the policy is to provide foundation for the
application of ICT to every sector of the economy and equip the citizenry with the capability
to increasingly adopt, apply and exploit ICT for their socio-economic activities. It is also
geared towards developing the ICT sector as a business by enunciating strategies to support
the private sector in development and provision of ICT goods and services. The policy is
5
The UNDP Education Index is published as part of the Human Development Index and calculated by
combining level of adult literacy (2/3 weight) and combined enrolment rates (1/3 weight) as reported by
UNESCO.
6
Literacy is expressed as percentage of population ages 15 and above who can read and write short statements.
Adult literacy rates (2005). Source UNESCO 2007a. Source UNESCO 2007b.

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based on the premise that Ghana‟s development can be accelerated through the development,
deployment and exploitation of ICTs within the economy and society (Ghana Government,
2003).
To achieve its general objective, the policy identified 14 priority focus areas, which
need to be developed and also made provisions for the development of action plans, which
are to facilitate the process. However, the development of action plans to implement the
strategies of the 14 priority focus areas have been stalled and this has affected the
achievement of the various rolling plans/milestones enunciated by the policy. The second
rolling plan was to end in 2010, however, the basic structures earmarked for the first rolling
plan are yet to be established. Consequently, the policy environment in the framework
(Figure 1) for evolution to an information society has not been effective to support the
development of information society in the country. This is because the policy has been
fraught with poor implementation.
The goal of the NTP is to establish market structures that will be most beneficial to
Ghana‟s citizens and businesses, and to set in motion the procedures and incentives that will
encourage the market to develop (Ministry of Communication, 2004). It is also to support the
realization of the vision of the national ICT4AD policy.
In the case of the NTP, some visible efforts have been made, for example, the further
opening of the ICT market to grant more operators licenses to operate. However, regulation,
despite some improvements remains a daunting task for the NCA. Poor quality of service and
inability of the regulator to enforce all the tenets of the licensing obligations of the ICT
service operators affect the effective development of the sector. These affect the ICT
readiness of the country, a critical component of the information society evolution framework.
Consequently, the lack of performance to implement of the tenets of the ICT4AD
policy and the regulatory defects are affecting the realization of the full impacts of ICT on the
national economy. Thus, jeopardizing the realization of the premise on which the policy was
built – to accelerate Ghana‟s development through the development, deployment and
exploitation of ICTs within the economy and society. The accelerated development will not
only help the country to achieve its development target of a middle income status by 2015 but
also achieve the targets of the Millennium Development Goals. In effect serious attention
should be given to the full operationalization of the ICT4AD policy.

4.4.2 ICT Skills Capability

This paper has identified a very poor e-skill base in the country and this is likely to affect the
development of information-rich people who could participate in the knowledge economy.
From the work of Schmidt and Stork (2008) Ghana‟s e-skills index is 0.49 and this is rather
low for the development of an information society. The human development index of Ghana
is 0.526 and ranked 152 in the world.
The government‟s White Paper on the Ghana Educational Reform emphasized the
need for the country‟s education to support the building of a human resource capacity to
propel the country to achieve knowledge-based economy. Consequently, it called for an
education system that will empower the youth (especially, those between age 12 and 19)
through integrating ICT into the educational curriculum. Besides the policy, there have a
number of initiatives to equip students with ICT skills. These include:
- Microsoft Partners in Learning Program
- NEPAD e-Schools Initiative
- CISCO Academy
- Oracle Academy Initiative
- Science Technology and Mathematics Education (STME) Clinic
- Science Resource Centers Project

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- GLOBE Program

One of the problems identified with these programs is lack of effective co-ordination
and therefore, their impacts have been minimal. None of the projects had been replicated
when the funding ceased.
Initiatives outside the formal educational sector include the Community Information
Centers (CIC) and 'MTN ICT Learning Centers‟ among others. These initiatives are targeted
at communities to help them acquire basic skills in the use of computers and the internet. The
CICs were established as part of the strategies by the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronics
Communication (GIFEC) to achieve universal access to ICT services in the country. No
assessment has been made of the CICs to identify their impact on building ICT literacy and
access in the rural areas. In the case of the MTN program, it is still in the formative stage.
To ensure the achievement of the full benefits from these programs and initiatives,
there is the need to harmonize these programs and provide a better focus so as to impact skills
and capabilities that are widely valued in IT sector. The ultimate goal is to provide the
citizenry with the possibility and the ability to increase skills, and strengthen their ability to
utilize ICTs. The work by La Cava, Lytle, Kolev, and Clert (2005) emphasized the
importance of ICT skills as a key to employability. In their work on the youth in Eastern
European countries, it came out strongly that lack of e-skills was a hindrance to employment.
Further, Garrido, Badshah and Coward (2009) argue that training programs on ICTs
should expressly provide people with the skills they need to be employable, obtain a better-
paying job, or start a microenterprise. It is paramount that the youth of Ghana which
constitutes 51% of the country‟s population are supported to acquire e-skills to facilitate their
employability.
A critical aspect of building ICT skills is the availability of avenues for employment.
Consequently, there should be synergy between e-skills development and the ICT market.
The ICT market conditions should determine the type of e-skills it requires for both its
present and future uses. However, this is not the situation in the country as there is a weak
linkage between the academia and the industry. This problem needs to be addressed
adequately to achieve synergy between these institutions so that the e-skills developed in the
country are beneficial to the industry.

4.4.3 Internet Penetration

Building an information society should not be limited to providing internet access for
commercial to activities, but should be extended to individual citizens to be part of the
knowledge economy, and support social development and cohesion.
The survey showed that only 0.3% of the households in Ghana had internet
connection at home. However, Ghana is among the premiere countries in Africa to introduce
internet services into its ICT sector. In spite of the early experimentation, the country failed
to take advantage of the early lead to rapidly deploy the service across the country, and this
has resulted in the low uptake.
Looking at the data and analysis, the low penetration of internet into homes is largely
due to the issue of cost. For example, one has to pay US$80 for a set –up fee and monthly
charge of US$75 to subscribe Internet Ghana Limited facility dedicated for homes. In the
case of Busy Internet, the set-up fee is US$200 and a monthly shared facility fee of US$95.
Owing to the low salary levels in the country, only a few households and individuals can
subscribe to residential broadband services.
Though there are over 35 operating internet service providers (ISPs) in the country,
less price competition is seen in the market and this has affected the development and uptake
of the service. A study by GISPA (2008) provides some answers to the abysmal performance

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of the industry. The key ones are limited coverage of fixed communications infrastructure,
which has hampered large scale deployment of the DSL broadband service, improper pricing
of bandwidth (copper, fiber and submarine) and high regulatory charges on the use of satellite
technology. For example, before 2004, 2mb duplex per month connectivity to the SAT-3
submarine cable (which the then Ghana Telecom had monopoly right) was US$12,500. In the
case of VSAT, there are different fees for the different areas and purposes. For public VSAT
in an urban area, one pays application fee of US$1,000, authorization fee of US$2,000 and
annual fee of US$2,000 per site. Invariably, the high cost of internet access is linked to
corresponding high cost in facility leasing and regulatory fees.
This point is argued by Esselaar, Gillwald and Stork (2006) who identified high cost
of leased lines as contributing to the high internet pricing in South Africa. Therefore, to
improve the penetration of internet service require efforts to lower leased facility prices
which may correspondingly lower internet pricing and make the service affordable to many
people. Hopefully, various new submarine cables (Glo1, Main-one, West Africa Cable
System [WACS] and others may affect the prices of leased facilities which in turn reduce the
high pricing of internet services in the country.
Though there have successive fall in the price of SAT-3 since 2004 to its current price
of US$4500 per month, the penetration of the service is still not impressive. Lack of market
dynamism has led to this situation. Most of the marketing strategies of the companies were
targeted at the corporate subscribers that located in the business enclaves of the major cities
of Ghana, notably, Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi. It is recently, especially when wireless
technology was increasingly applied in the country that some of these companies have
devised strategies targeted at small and residential users.
There is the need for a critical look at the internet market in Ghana so as to engender
it. This becomes important since the industry is unregulated and market dynamism is to
bolster its growth. Though, market forces are to shape the development of the industry, it is
necessary for a national policy to provide a conducive environment for the industry to strive.
Consequently, work on the national broadband policy should be expedited to provide such a
framework and guidance to the industry.

4.4.4 Reviving the Fixed Line Telephones

The analysis showed that the deployment of fixed line telephones has been slow and between
2003 – 2008 subsector experienced compound average growth rate (CAGR) of negative 13.1,
while that of mobile telephones was 70.8 percent (ITU, 2009c)7.
It is argued that fixed line telephones still have useful roles to play in the development
of the information society, and therefore, requires a strong and innovative policy intervention
to revamp the sub-sector. The intervention should explore ways of increasing investment in
the sub-sector to expand the coverage, as well as improve the quality of the infrastructure.
The fixed line telephone should be included in the list of the priority sectors to benefit from
incentives under the Ghana Investment Promotion Act8.
Further, the NCA should revive and expedite action on the plans to award zonal fixed
wireless license to companies to provide fixed wireless services in the country. It is a basic
infrastructure which should be revived to take advantage of any technological breakthroughs
that might occur. Though wireless technology largely WiMax is increasingly replacing fixed
lines as the infrastructure for internet, the wireless technology has its own problems –

7
The negative compound growth indicates that over the years, the fixed line telephones lines have declined
instead of increasing as has been the case with mobile telephones.
8
The Ghana Investment Promotion Act identifies a number of critical sectors of the economy where incentives
can be given to support the growth of those sectors.

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instability of signals, obstructions and the issue of point of presence make fixed line
telephone necessary.
Development in the market indicates that Airtel Ghana (originally Westel) is only
concentrating on mobile telephone service instead fixed line telephone. The company was
licensed as the second national network operator and therefore, it should be required to fulfill
its original license obligations. This may introduce competition and dynamism into the
market which is currently a monopoly for Vodafone Ghana.
It has been suggested that mobile technology has the potential to realize the
information society aspirations of states (Grantham and Tsekouras, 2004), but the point is no
single communication technology can underlined the information society. It requires the
combination of others and this lays point for more attention to be given to develop the fixed
line network. The explosion of submarine fiber cables terminating in Ghana, as well as the
national terrestrial fiber backbone network may require a very good fixed line telephone
infrastructure to support them. ASDL broadband internet will still be available and useful for
internet connectivity and expansion. Consequently, the development of these networks,
especially the high speed fiber networks should be in tandem with an efficient fixed line
telephone infrastructure.

5 CONCLUSION
The analysis has shown that Ghana compares relatively favorably with selected African
countries in terms of access and usage. However, the critical resource, which will enable the
country to effectively exploit the opportunities of ICTs is woefully inadequate. It is important
that the country facilitates the building of e-skills in the country through a more structured
and rigorous programs whose impact on the national landscape will be strong.
Further, the development of programs and action plans to implement the strategies of
the ICT4AD need to be revamped to ensure that the milestones spelt out earlier are achieved
to support the country‟s evolution towards information society.
It is also concluded that there is the need for the industry players and the regulator to
address the ever expensive market to engender dynamism to promote growth in the industry.
The current level of 0.3% households with internet connection at home is woefully
inadequate and a more rigorous approach should be adopted including affordable pricing and
increased e-skills capability to increase residential internet access and usage.
Again, the fixed line telephone market should not be allowed to die, but adequately
supported to complement other technologies which can be employed to reach the information
society status. Finally, it is concluded that Ghana has made some progress in improving
access and use of ICT facilities in the country as a way of achieving the objective of the
national ICT4AD policy and GTP. However, much remains to be done to achieve the
information society status.

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