GIFEC develops Prison-Inmate Locator

The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronics Communications (GIFEC) is to develop the Prison-Inmate Location System to furnish relatives of incarcerated persons information about their relations. The initiative, announced in a statement issued by GIFEC, would also enable relatives of remand prisoners to know the date their relations were arrested, the police or prisons cells they are kept, the exact court presiding over the case and their next court appearance. Mr. Kobby Akyeampong, the Administrator of GIFEC, has said that the initiative is to tackle the real problems of prisoners that have been dumped on remand and forgotten. “It is a simple tool to help everybody, especially the families of remand prisoners to locate their relation,” he said, adding that GIFEC had discussed the initiative with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Security and are in the process of developing the guidelines to roll-out the programme. The system, when developed would be handled by the Judiciary, Ghana Prisons Service and the Ghana Police Service. He said that as part of plans for this year, management was developing an information communication technology hub that allows state institutions to hook onto the hub for their daily operations to better serve their audiences. On health care, Mr. Akyeampong said GIFEC would improve on the information communication technology connectivity of the Community Health Improvement Services (CHIPS), compound project with the introduction of software to enhance healthcare delivery. He said tele-medicine, a system where technicians are trained to man these facilities to better deliver quality healthcare services was also in the pipeline. In the area of education, Mr. Akyeampong said GIFEC, in collaboration with the Ghana Library Authority (GLA) was to develop an e-library platform, where all libraries will be linked to afford Ghanaians access to all books and reading materials online and also create an opportunity for the youth to develop themselves. “We are in discussions with the National Information Technology Agency for the project to be rolled out very soon,” he said. The main objective of the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) is to provide financial resources for the establishment of universal service and ensure access to ICT and basic telephony, by rural communities in Ghana. This includes facilitating and providing internet, multimedia, and broadband service to unserved and underserved rural communities.