Senyo Keh-Mawuli

@_nazatrades They also dont trade when their girlfriend(s) are sick ...

Only you don’t trade on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. You also don’t trade whenever there’s news. So when exactly do you trade?

Overwhelming expression of interest. We need you all there.

here is something most people do not know. though the initial, official deadline for feedback has passed, the nita bill is still technically in the "public consultation phase" which means your formal submission is legally part of the process. here is how to make your voice count beyond the timeline. 🧵 #StopTheNITABill #ReviewTheNITALaw

@kofiro222 @NITAGhana Something from a serious government

When the Turkish government is literally boosting their mobile app and gaming sector with really great incentives for app and game studios, @NITAGhana is expecting mobile app developers to pay a renewal fee which costs more than the AppStore and Playstore fees combined! Why!?

One dumb head who can't even operate WhatsApp effectively How will you know when you can't even create a good password???

Are these the concerns we raised? Don't worry, you people all dey ICT inside. They'll come for you too. Then we'll see.

@tradesbymustii If you trade on a day like this then you're not one of us ...

Monday is going to be slow. Do you trade on bank holidays?

@ElKcee1 It really gonna fuck up your psyche like it's doing to mine ...

Hit me with one harsh truth about trading.

@highkeyfx Is it by force??

This is what you should be bookmarking not my payout certificates😭😂

The signal that the NITA bill is sending to the very people who are building the tech ecosystem might end up damaging the very ecosystem it intends to regulate.

Quick update: we’re postponing our Space and redirecting everyone to the official @NITAGhana Space tonight at 7:30pm. Hon. Minister @samgeorgegh will be there, so this is the chance to hear directly from the Ministry and ask questions on the NITA Bill. If you use the internet, run a business, build software, work in tech, or simply want to understand what is being proposed, please join. Don’t miss this 👍🏾

@OleleSalvador Boss, there are 14 others, too, targeting every aspect of the digital space ...

👨🏾‍🍳🇬🇭: Honorable, not every concern raised around your ministry/industry is rooted in mischief. Yes, these provisions may have existed quietly in old legislation but outdated laws don’t suddenly become right in modern tech conversations. It’s the same reason many of us fought against the LI permitting mining in forests. The NITA bill, old or not, feels draconian and risks crippling an already struggling tech space in a country still catching up on enabling ecosystems. Please engage the tech community about concerns raised before it is passed because the pressers by NITA sidesteps them. I hope the ‘we’ in your ‘we have a Country to build’ is not just limited to you & the powers that be. Vox populi, vox dei. 🦅🇬🇭

Regulation by Invoicing: The Systemic Flaws in NITA’s Licensing Push and the Threat to Ghana’s Digital Trust By John Sitsofe Mensah , Technology Policy Analyst, IMANI. 9 mins read The architecture of a nation’s digital economy relies entirely on the integrity of its regulatory frameworks. When the rules governing technological innovation are clear, predictable, and legally sound, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) thrives, and digital trust is established. However, when regulatory bodies bypass foundational legislation in favor of administrative bootstrapping, the entire ecosystem is placed at risk. The recent push by the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) to mandate licenses for individual ICT professionals and general private tech businesses presents a textbook case of regulatory overreach. By leaning on the Fees and Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2022, and its subsequent 2023 Regulations to justify this sweep, NITA is attempting to extract a substantive regulatory mandate out of a consolidated financial instrument. A rigorous analysis of the underlying issues, laws, and frameworks surrounding this development reveals structural legal contradictions, a glaring historical legislative void, and a reactive regulatory posture that threatens to stifle local innovation and erode the very digital trust the agency was established to protect. *The Foundational Blueprint: Strict Statutory Boundaries* To understand the current friction, one must examine the original 2008 regulatory architecture. NITA was established by the National Information Technology Agency Act, 2008 (Act 771), with a companion framework provided by the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772). These laws were designed with a specific, corporate-focused regulatory intent: - Infrastructure over Individuals: NITA was tasked with regulating the "provision" of ICT, managing networks, and ensuring quality of service at the enterprise level. - Strict Licensing Limitations: Act 772 explicitly limits NITA’s certification powers to highly sensitive corporate services, specifically encryption and authentication. - The Individual Prohibition: Most crucially, Section 38(1) of Act 772 contains an unambiguous, specific prohibition: "A licence shall not be issued or granted by the Agency to an individual." Under the 2008 framework, a data analyst or software developer simply utilizing ICT infrastructure to practice their trade operates entirely outside NITA’s licensing purview. *The Legislative Void and the Pivot to "Regulation by Invoicing"* To operationalize a primary Act—especially one establishing a "Certifying Agency" with highly technical mandates—a detailed Legislative Instrument (LI) is legally required. Despite multiple drafts circulating over the years, no comprehensive, sector-specific LIs were ever formally enacted to operationalize NITA’s broad statutory mandates under the 2008 Acts. Without an operational LI, NITA found itself holding broad enabling legislation but completely lacking the subsidiary legal tools required to actually execute its mandate. This legislative vacuum directly explains the agency's current reliance on the Fees and Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2022. By sliding pricing schedules for "IT Professional Licenses" and broad business certifications into a general financial instrument, the agency engaged in administrative bootstrapping—hoping the authorization to collect a fee would be interpreted as the legal mandate to establish the regulatory regime itself. This approach is legally flawed: - The Fallacy of Revenue as Regulation: The Fees and Charges Act is a consolidated national pricing catalog. Passing a financial schedule that sets a price tag for a "Software Developer Certification" does not magically grant the agency the substantive legal authority to create or enforce that professional guild. Pricing does not equal permission. - Hierarchy of Laws: A fundamental rule of statutory interpretation dictates that general laws cannot implicitly repeal specific laws. A line item buried in a general fees schedule cannot override the explicit prohibition against individual licensing found in Section 38(1) of Act 772. *The Fallacy of the IT Guild: Why State Gatekeeping is Needless* While legislative integrity demands that any move to regulate human capital must occur through rigorous primary legislation, we must ask a more fundamental question: Should the state be licensing IT professionals at all? Attempting to shoehorn the tech sector into a traditional, state-mandated professional guild is a profound misunderstanding of how the global digital economy operates. Creating a mandatory IT guild is entirely needless for two core reasons: - Global Standards Already Exist: The IT sector is inherently borderless and already governed by rigorous, globally recognized standards. International certification systems—ranging from vendor-neutral accreditations like CISSP, CompTIA, and ISACA to vendor-specific credentials from AWS, Cisco, and Microsoft—are continuously updated to reflect the bleeding edge of technology. A localized, state-run certification system cannot hope to outpace or out-rigor these global benchmarks. Rather than mandating a redundant local license, policy should encourage and perhaps subsidize the acquisition of these internationally recognized credentials. - The Meritocracy of Self-Taught Knowledge: Unlike medicine or law, the tech ecosystem thrives on decentralized learning and the open-source movement. A developer's competence is proven by their code repositories, their problem-solving logic, and their deployment history, not by a state-issued piece of paper. The sector is famously meritocratic, heavily relying on brilliant, self-taught innovators. Erecting a mandatory guild system risks disenfranchising these self-taught experts, creating artificial barriers to entry that will ultimately starve the local industry of talent. *The Path Forward: Fostering Enablement Over Gatekeeping* In 1865, as the first motorized vehicles emerged, the British Parliament panicked. To maintain control over a disruptive new technology, they passed the Locomotive Act—famously known as the "Red Flag Act." It required every motorized vehicle to be preceded by a man walking on foot, waving a red flag to warn pedestrians. While intended to create order, the law effectively strangled the British automobile industry in its crib, allowing nations with more enabling frameworks to leapfrog them. Today, attempting to force the modern, decentralized IT sector into a localized, state-mandated licensing guild is the digital equivalent of the Red Flag Act. It imposes analog constraints on a purely digital frontier. Furthermore, in structural engineering, there is an unforgiving truth: you cannot build a skyscraper on a foundation poured for a bungalow. You can add as many floors as you like, and you can paint the facade to look modern, but eventually, the structural reality will assert itself, and the edifice will collapse. The exact same principle applies to regulatory frameworks. A regulatory regime built on the fragile foundation of a pricing catalog will inevitably fracture under the weight of actual enforcement and legal scrutiny. To foster innovation and build enduring digital trust, Ghana does not need to mandate professional guilds via invoices. We require: Regulatory Clarity: Agencies must operate strictly within the bounds of their enabling Acts. - Incentivizing Global Competence: The state should encourage the use of rigorous, existing international certifications to raise the national skill floor, rather than forcing practitioners into a localized licensing trap. - Transparent Recourse Mechanisms: The industry needs mandatory performance metrics and operational data publication from regulators to ensure accountability and prevent administrative overreach. If Ghana is to build a secure, effective, and globally competitive digital economy, its regulatory foundation must be grounded in robust law and an architecture of enablement, not merely in a schedule of fees. John Sitsofe Mensah is a Technology Policy Analyst with IMANI. @JoyNewsOnTV @Joy997FM @Nuetey @Citi973 @Channel1TVGHA @STARRNEWS @starr1035fm @NiiMoiThompson @mocghana @samgeorgegh @Graphicgh @utvghana @starr1035fm @tv3_ghana @radiogold905fm @3fm927 @AccraFM1005 @gbcnews_ @ghonetv @Citi973 @Ghanaian_Times @Adomonline @onua951fm @OnuaTV @Peace1043fm @LuvFM995

The Akufo-Addo govt appointed one guy bi because he worked at NASA to lead one of these institutions John Mahama also appointed a Google layoff to head NITA Ahh. Do they think that because she worked at Google, she can build the next Google for Ghana? How do our leaders think?

@0xEbaf And so?? So she has the pedigree to make these decisions??? Did the American government certify her to work at Google?? She's not even supposed to work at Google if these kinds of bills are passed there ...

The current board Chairman for Nita worked at Google for 17 years. Google ooo. Like how can you tell me this story.

@samgeorgegh @JDMahama exactly my point

@GideonAmeyow @KojoWud__ Sorry bro

@Senyo197 @KojoWud__ As a glasses wearing dbee I’m very offended by this comment 😂

so you guys are telling me the government doesn’t have experts anaa?

If we decide to take a critical tone towards the NDC government, your foot soldiers cannot save you. I promise! It has been done and tested. Not even the activists, who have now turned into government PR machines, will save you. Stop Samuela George before it gets out of hand!

@sack_chasser @BigAfellay Part of the bill is to also control merger, acquisition, or related of all ICT products

Enforcing standards is actually part of regulation but certification or registration is just one possible tool, not the whole system. A well-designed policy is not meant to create bureaucracy or block developers, but to set clear rules for quality, security, and accountability while still allowing exemptions and startup-friendly pathways. The real debate should be about how to prevent abuse and ensure fair implementation and not assuming the worst-case scenario of fees or corruption as the final outcome.

Is it not the same as teachers, nurses, lawyers and other professionals who need license before they work? You guys want the country to work until it’s time to okay your role.

@sack_chasser @BigAfellay Standards and certification are two different things Standards are enforced all over the world without certification