President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Monday assured that government would provide the funding for the critical infrastructure needed to ensure Ghana’s cyber security, to protect the people, the economy and the country’s national security.

Furthermore, as part of efforts to secure Ghana’s cyber space, government, he said, was to set up a National Cyber security Authority and enact also a Cyber security Act to address, in line with global trends, the current challenges facing the national cyber security development.

The President gave the assurance at the launch of the National Cyber Security Awareness Month organised jointly by the Ministry of Communications and the National Cyber Security Centre at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) at Teshie near Accra.

The Awareness month is to be observed on the theme: “A Safer Digital Ghana”.

With Ghana registering significant developments in the last 18 months with the introduction of paperless ports processes, digital property addressing system, mobile money interoperability systems, amongst others, President Akufo-Addo said, his administration was taking the needed precautionary measures and investment fit-for-purpose to make the country’s digital experience safe and secure as the nation scaled up e-connectivity as part of government's digitalisation agenda.

“With 10 million Ghanaians connected to the internet, of which 4.9 million are Facebook users alone, the impact of any cyber-attack on our e-business platforms or on mobile telephony will impact negatively on businesses and on the lives of Ghanaians,"

With the dramatic rise in cyberspace threat and the hazards of technological advancement on Ghana’s security, he said cannot afford a situation where cyber threats undermine the gains made through the digitalisation of the country’s economy, saying no efforts would be to keep the country in readiness to address cyber security issues.

Ghana, like many developing countries, the President noted, had come of age with its digitalisation agenda, thus there was utmost need to actively secure its digital space same to sustain the gains made thus far.