A 15-year-old schoolgirl has reportedly become pregnant by a man said to be old enough to be her father.
A teacher has shared a video of himself speaking with the student about her situation, during which she revealed that her father is deceased and that she lives with her aunt.
It wasn’t.
With rare exception, colonies were unprofitable, meaning more was spent building infrastructure like roads, railways, buildings, etc. than was exported.
And look at places like Singapore and Hong Kong. Both were colonies for a long time and yet they are extremely prosperous.
The NITA Bill 2025 mandates EVERY IT worker in Ghana licensed before they can work, even in private companies.
It also:
- taxes IT companies on revenue (not profit)
- jails unlicensed tech founders for up to 10 YEARS
- restricts IT licences to companies wholly owned by Ghanaians, potentially driving away foreign investment to other African countries like Rwanda & Kenya.
- The Bill does many other awful and archaic things
This may be the biggest anti-tech bill Ghana has seen in years.
#StopTheNITABill
The Government should consider reshuffling Sam George before he unites the Tech Community in Ghana against his own party. Look at this NITA bill. You are supposed to help encourage tech among the youth to expand Ghana’s growth in the industry, but instead you want to stifle growth and make money from the people.
To let you know, it took me less than 5 minutes to register my tech LLC in the US, and it cost me less than $130, an amount someone working can earn in a day. So far, you haven’t done anything to help startups, yet you want to make money from them.
Your point is, you’re enforcing already existing legislations and not a Bill. But as someone with legal knowledge and a legislator too, you definitely know and the courts have cemented into public knowledge that existing legislation can be wrong and can be criticized.
NPP v IGP. The IGP was enforcing existing legislation (Public Order Act) to restrict people from embarking on demonstrations without his permit. Supreme Court struck down those provisions.
Mensima v Ag. Existing L.I stated that one must be part of a cooperative society to be granted a license to be a local distiller. Court struck down that provision.
Martin Kpebu v Ag. Existing legislation that’s the Criminal Procedure Act stated that one cannot be granted bail for certain severe offenses. The Supreme Court over fifty years later struck down that provision.
When your response is that you’re just enforcing an existing legislation, any citizen of Ghana who is adversely affected by that legislation can bring an action to strike it down as breaching the constitution or administrative power.
Even in the case of Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association v NMC, the court struck down existing regulations that sought to censor and restrict the broadcasting content of independent broadcasters.
Infact common sense makes it clear that only existing legislations can be problematic.
In the case of Amanda Odoi v Ag as well as Richard Sky v Ag the court held it is not Bills but existing legislation that can be questioned by citizens in the public interest.
Ghanaians have a right to question, critique and even challenge existing legislation in court. They don’t have to be IT experts to challenge a law you think only affects IT experts.
The law potentially affects every prospective IT specialist and every single Ghanaian who will utilize those services because we will pay the extra costs when these license costs and restrictions are imposed on them, because WE are the final consumers.
Administrative fairness under the Wednesbury case principle mandates that the administrative body will be REASONABLE if it considers all that it ought to take into consideration.
On one hand you were fighting exorbitant DSTV prices for the “people” because it benefited your mandate. On the other hand you’re now imposing exorbitant fees on the same people you’re going to release as coders and such costs will be transferred to every Ghanaian.
The former government did not impose such fees under the existing law because it would’ve been unreasonable and harsh to do so.
You’re known for many things but you’re not known for passing and enforcing unreasonable laws or?
I barely do this but I beg any Ghanaian to read the following write up by Chris-Vincent Agyapong. Bookmark, share etc cos wtf 😳
1/4
“Ghana's NITA Bill 2025: How a Government That Cannot Fix Potholes Wants to Certify Your Keyboard Strokes
There is a particular brand of Ghanaian governance that operates on a simple, well-rehearsed logic: identify the one sector in which ordinary young people, without connections, without family money, without a politician uncle are actually building something for themselves, and then erect a magnificent bureaucratic tollbooth right in the middle of it.
The National Information Technology Authority Bill, 2025 currently making its way through Ghana's legislative machinery with the quiet confidence of a document probably written by a majority of people who have never debugged a line of code in their lives is precisely that tollbooth. It is, in its 105 sections and accompanying Schedule, one of the most breathtaking exercises in regulatory overreach this country has produced in recent memory. And given our regulatory track record, that is genuinely saying something.
The ICT sector is the one industry where a boy from Ashaiman, or, like my friend from Pulima, Aliu Wahab, with a second-hand laptop and a YouTube tutorial, can compete with someone whose father went to Achimota. It is the one space where talent, not tribe; skill, not surname; output, not old-boy network, still carries meaningful weight. It is, bluntly, the only functioning meritocracy left in Ghana's economic life.
And our government, with the NITA Bill 2025 has decided that this is precisely the sector that requires the most elaborate regulatory architecture since the tale of Moses coming down from Sinai with the Ten Commandments.
The Absurdity of Section 46: Certifying Everyone, Everywhere, Always
Let us begin with what is, without competition, the most extraordinary provision in this bill. Section 46(1) states, in plain and unambiguous terms:
"A person shall not be appointed as an ICT professional in a public or private institution unless that person is certified by the Authority."
Read that again. Public or private.
This is not a provision that limits itself to government systems handling national security data. This is not a narrow carve-out for critical infrastructure. This is a provision that means the software developer at a startup in Osu, the data analyst at a logistics firm in Tema, the web designer freelancing from her bedroom in Kumasi, all of them, every single one must first obtain certification from a government authority before they can lawfully be employed.
Who dreamed this up? Under what theory of governance does it make sense for the government of Ghana which cannot consistently process a DVLA licence within six months, which spent years and hundreds of millions on a national identification system that still cannot talk to the health insurance database to position itself as the certifying gatekeeper for an entire profession across the entire economy?
And here is the delicious irony that the framers of this bill seem constitutionally incapable of perceiving: the government's own ICT record is the single most compelling argument against giving it certification authority over anyone. You do not hand the keys of the wine cellar to the person who has been drinking the wine.
Politicians: The One Profession That Needs Certification Most, and Gets It Least
Since we are on the subject of certification, let us pause to consider who in this country is not required to demonstrate any competence whatsoever before being handed consequential power over millions of lives.
Continued below
I need a favour from you guys
Dr Likee is doing something big but I feel the support from the media is quite low. To me this is a big deal. One way or the other we need to push this event. The least you can do is share his artworks and get tickets. #DrLikeeLive