This was revealed by the Managing Director of Ghana Post, James Kwofie on Friday, at a press conference organized by the Ministry of Communications following criticisms of the digital address system.

Mr. Kwofie made the revelation when he was giving the breakdown of the amount spent on the system which was earlier announced to be $2.5 million.

[contextly_sidebar id=”BbgTOGiNs7NCt9sW0baaAGXN4oVvVw8I”]“In terms of the cost, what is being paid for is the back-end solution, data analytics, hardware i.e. the firewalls and servers, Google license, marketing and publicity as well as technical support, and GHc1.7 million VAT which goes back to the government. Contrary to popular belief, Google charges when you use their systems for look-up purposes or commercial activities. The Google license fee at the moment is $400,000 per year – that is the enterprise package,” he added.

GHc3.5 million blown on publicity

He added that, an amount of GHc3.5 million was also spent on publicizing the system.

“Publicity like I said, is GHc3.5 million, and there are very expensive firewalls, we can’t say how many, but that also cost a lot of money,” he added

Background

President Akufo-Addo about two weeks ago launched the National Digital Property Addressing System, also known as the Ghana Post GPS in Accra, aimed at providing an effective means of addressing every location and place in the country, using an information technology application.

The app, which government said cost the country $2.5 million has been criticized by some experts in the technology space as well as some civil society organizations.

For instance, president of policy think tank, IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe, described the system as amateurish and not new.

He also questioned the security implications of the data received by the system.

“I’ve read quite a number of reviews by industry watchers, and some of the comments they’ve made are not necessarily helpful – to think that you could input just any data and generate an address in itself sounds amateurish. There are basic web portals where you input any kind of data it could reject it, especially when you are filling forms. And to hear that obviously, that it is something with this app is quite troubling,” Franklin Cudjoe added.

No data breach

But speaking at the press conference, Nana Osei Afrifa, Chief Executive Officer for Vokakom, the company that designed the app, assured that the data accepted by the system is safe.

He added that, ample measures have also been put in place to forestall any data breach.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

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Ace lawyer Dr. Maurice Ampaw has called on the police service to arrest Asamoah Gyan, the skipper of the Black Stars in connection with the disappearance of popular musician Theophilus Tagoe, affectionately called ‘Castro the Destroyer’

The hiplife star was last seen on the Volta estuary when he and Janet Bandu  went jet skiing in the waters at Ada on 6 July.

Castro and Black Stars captain, Gyan, were at the Peace Holiday Resort at Ada, together with some friends, for recreation when the unfortunate incident occurred and despite intensive rescue operations the two are yet to be found.

Dr. Ampaw believes the police should arrest the Black Stars skipper and everybody who accompanied them to the place, for them to aid them in their investigations to ascertain the  truth concerning the whereabouts of Castro, because he believes their explanations do not sound convincing.

“If Ghana were a serious nation, we wouldn’t have allowed Marine Police to go and have fun on the sea, with the intention of searching for Castro’s body. Then Asamoah Gyan also picked a boat saying he was going to search for Castro, this would not happen in a serious country,” he told Metro FM.

“For Christ sake, Castro is a celebrity, a star, anybody who was involved should be arrested to enable the person write his statement.

“We are in a country people do not know their right and that is why they are walking freely. I am therefore calling for the arrest of Asamoah Gyan and anybody, who went with Castro to Ada. They should arreste them and be given police enquiry bail, for the investigation to be carried out.”

Gyan captained Ghana during the just ended World Cup finals in Brazil, scoring two goals, but the Black Stars  failed to make it out of the group stage of the World Cup for the very first time in their history amidst issues of player agitation, player indiscipline, delay in the payment of appearance fees and the air lifting of money to Brazil.

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Source: Allsports.com.gh

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