Digitisation won’t succeed without collaboration - Vodafone CEO
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana, Mrs Patricia Obo-Nai, has said the country’s desired digital economy can only be achieved if the government, telcos and other stakeholders collaborate.
According to her, the development of digital economy had become a major focal point on the radar of the government and other stakeholders, bringing to the fore the critical importance of digital tools and interventions, particularly in the wake of the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
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Mrs Obo-Nai said that during a panel discussion at the 5th edition of Ghana CEO Summit held in Accra, on the theme, “Digital transformation: Powering business and government reset for a post-pandemic economic resilience. A public-private sector dialogue”.
Fundamental factors
For the desired outcome to be attained, however, Mrs Obo-Nai said certain fundamental factors had to be put in place, such as internet connectivity.
She regretted that Ghana continued to rank among the countries with the lowest level of internet penetration.
“In this day and age, we are, unfortunately, still talking about 2G internet connectivity in major parts of Ghana. How are we going to be able to drive digital economy when, thanks to low coverage, people use handsets that can only make phone calls?” she quizzed.
“There are so many towns in this country that are not connected to the internet. Until appropriate infrastructure is pegged down, we cannot go beyond these summits and discussions to actually deliver the stated digital economy,” she added.
Way forward
She said the way forward was for the government to partner with telcos and other stakeholders to work towards rectifying the current gap in digital infrastructure and subsequently leverage it to build a resilient and formidable digital economy.
According to her, neither the telcos nor the government had the capacity to make the digital economy a reality.
She urged the government to put in place policies, necessary infrastructure and the enabling environment to accelerate Ghana’s digital transformation--.
“The current high cost of operation derails all efforts. As it stands now, it costs a telco a whopping $30 million to acquire enough spectrum to provide 4G internet to a specific location; coupled with this are other operational costs. All these considered, we cannot achieve the much talked about universal access by 2030 unless we join forces. This is why I say that it is a shared responsibility,” she said.