benacq

Designed my first PCB, wheew! Do I need a license to do this too? @NITAGhana

Ministry of Agriculture website has also been hacked.

@MikelAsamoah It will hit them like crack 😂

Everyone think as dem no be techies they're free. Lmao, dey play 😂

Go to Kenya or Rwanda, build for the world. Exclude Ghana from the list of African countries. And allow @NITA @samgeorgegh and his ministry to keep building their cheap ass apps to oppress Ghanaians. It's that simple.

If you think this NITA nonsense doesn't affect you, wait till you see my license fee as a line item in your invoice. Y3b3ky3 etua paarhn.

@caleb_prempeh 😂

Idea 😭😂

@topboyasante Chale 😂

🤣🤣🤣

Instead of them to find some SaaS to build, you want to milk the whole industry LMAO

I randomly think about the Uber driver who refused to return my Apple Watch. I hope he has a terrible day today.

Lol you are fucking kidding me.

The NITA bill is just 1 out of 15 bills. I've downloaded all the bills and numbered them in an order that makes sense. Read them from 1 to 15 and the whole picture will be clearer. Download them here: drive.google.com/file/d/1XzA5DJ…

Since 2019, Ghana's tech sector has been the fastest growing sub-sector in national output. Policy and legislation must consolidate those gains, not stifle them. Unfortunately, the wave of legislation being proposed at the sector ministry seems more interested in state control than enabling growth. For instance, insisting that only wholly-owned Ghanaian companies can get licences to operate in the sector, requiring all tech professionals to be certified by NITA to work in the public or private sector, and taxing gross revenue instead of profit are all anti-growth and anti-innovation. If we want to make Ghana a tech hub in the region, legislation that shuts out investment and innovation and centralises power in a state institution will make that dream continue to be just a dream.

@TheDumbTechGuy Visa free, company registration is free and done in about 6 hours, after you can open a bank account (all this within 24hrs)

Sam, you are not being asked to abandon the bill. You are being asked to answer for it. The tech community is not arrogant. It is not uninformed. It is not — as some of your sharper supporters have implied online — a cabal of "noisemakers." It is the constituency that grew Ghana's ICT sector by 19% a year for six straight years without a single NITA certificate, that built the fintech ecosystem moving US$36 billion in transactions, that drew Twitter to choose Accra over Lagos and Nairobi, and that you yourself purport to be training a million more of. We are asking you ten questions. Please answer them — directly, in writing, citing the sections and the statutes, and on a timeline that allows the answers to inform the parliamentary debate rather than follow it. If the bill is as defensible as you say it is, the answers should be easy. If they are not, then perhaps the bill is not as defensible as you say it is. @koboateng @pazunre #StopTheNITABill

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

@ Maybe you don’t understand the gravity of the situation and how detrimental this bill will be if passed. So let me give you an example to give you a clear picture. Google came about as a result of a final year PhD dissertation . Now follow me and use your imagination here—Just imagine you are a final year PhD student taking peanuts as stipends and trying to work on your dissertation but you need clearance and certification from someone who has no knowledge about what you working on to proceed. Do you honestly think Google would have been birthed if they had to go through that? Engage stake holders before you proceed with this bill don’t let your ego lead and sit at the corner to discuss with your deputy who doesn’t even understand what coding is.

“Tech is making waves” Rwanda: Wow, then let’s create an enabling ecosystem for techies. Ghana: Perfect way to retard the ordinary tech guy. Let’s introduce licenses and certifications. For a country that can’t guarantee its citizens a simple job? Next joke please!

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?

The State does not have the authority to issue a license for anyone to engage in creative business. It lacks that authority. Prior restraint is likely to create room for the state to abuse its power, and the danger it poses outweighs any genuine public interest. There is no public interest in why someone who wants to engage in creative work needs a state license. If creative actors fail to perform their business diligently, they can be sued by their customers. The only legitimate state interest is to issue standards, build capacity, and impose sanctions on those who violate standards. It cannot create a licensing regime.