e-Government Services in Ghana — Current State and Future Perspective

Current trends have proven that services provided by Electronic Government (e-Government) are helpful in the realization of good governance objectives. These e-Government services leverage on modern Information and Communication Technologies to provide an effective electronic public administration platform through which citizens and a government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) interact with one another. The openness of these e-Government services enhances a government’s ability to achieve transparency, citizen trust and participation, while cutting down on the cost of governance. It is for these and many other benefits that the Government of Ghana has placed in pragmatic efforts in enacting e-Government policies and deploying pilot projects in several parts of the country. These deployments have mainly been spearheaded by the National Information Technology Agency (NITA). These pilot projects, to some extent, have achieved objectives such as creation of external relations (e-society); refinement of governance procedures (e-administration); and connecting nationals (e-services and e-citizens). Whilst these pilot projects have improved governance structures, dissemination of information and growth of the economy, lack of good infrastructure and sustainable funding schemes for these projects have been identified as major challenges that have affected the full realization of the set goals. This paper investigates the key mitigating factors associated with the pilot e-Governance projects in Ghana by evaluating the existing systems and then looks towards the future.