NITA Bill Still a Draft, Not Before Cabinet Yet – Sam George

The proposed National Information Technology Authority Bill has not been sent to Cabinet and remains only a preliminary draft, Minister for Communication, Technology and Innovation Samuel Nartey George has clarified.

Addressing stakeholders in Accra on Tuesday, May 26, the Minister dismissed claims that government has passed or is already rolling out the bill.

“That is so far away from the fact and the truth,” he said, describing the document currently circulating as a “zero draft” at the earliest stage of the lawmaking process.

According to Mr. George, the draft has gone through several reviews with legal teams but has not even received his ministry’s final sign-off. “The fifth iteration has still not even been approved by the ministry,” he noted.

He added that the bill is not part of the 10 Cabinet memoranda his ministry is currently processing and has not been submitted to Cabinet for review.

The Minister walked through the steps a bill must clear before becoming law. After ministry approval, it goes to Cabinet, then to the Attorney-General’s Department, and finally to Parliament for detailed clause-by-clause consideration.

He reminded stakeholders that Ghana’s ICT sector is still governed by Acts 771 and 772, passed in 2008. While those laws were forward-looking at the time, he admitted that 18 years of rapid change have left parts of them outdated or poorly enforced.

Once finalized, the NITA Bill would upgrade the National Information Technology Agency into a full regulatory authority. It would be empowered to license ICT firms, certify professionals, set digital standards, and oversee government technology procurement.

The draft also proposes an ICT tribunal to resolve disputes and introduces penalties for fraud, unlicensed operations, and data breaches.

Mr. George said reforms are needed because the sector has evolved significantly since 2008, but stressed that the process is still at the discussion stage with no legal effect yet.