Accra, July 21, GNA - Construction of the ultra-modern Ghana/India Advanced Information Technology Institute (AITI) to be named after Mr Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, at Teshie in Accra is near completion. The Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in Information and Communication Technology is being set up with the Indian government's assistance. The Centre is meant to create an Information Communication Technology (ICT) hub in the sub-region where training and technological solutions would be offered to Ghanaians, with particular emphasis on tailor-made skill for industries and businesses.

Mr Kwasi Adu-Gyan, ICT Adviser to the Minister of Information, who led a team of journalists to the Centre, told them that construction work was on course and would be finished by the end of the month. He said the Centre, which is estimated to cost about 13 billion cedis, is a co-operation between the Indian and Ghana governments. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed to that effect last August in New Delhi, India, between Mr Felix Owusu-Agyapong, Minister of Communications and Technology for Ghana and Mr Pramod Mahdjan, Minister of Communications and Information Technology of India.

Under the agreement, India would provide the latest state of the art computer hardware such as servers, desktops, printers and scanners. Others are software and communication equipment such as routers, switches and other equipment required to set up the Centre. India would in addition train ICT trainers from Ghana and help in the design of the curriculum for teaching of ICT in schools and colleges. Ghana is providing the infrastructure and administrative and technical staff.

The facilities at the Centre would include an auditorium with a capacity for 250 people, four acoustic computer laboratories with each having a sitting capacity for 45 people, a boardroom, offices, reception, library, corporate conference room and a snack bar. He said that by the end of this month, the Centre would have a Director-General and would start admissions by mid August.