Accra (Greater Accra) 19 May ?99

The United States Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Mr Robert Mallet, on Tuesday introduced a new computer software that can be used by companies in Africa to manage the millennium bug problem.

Otherwise known as Y2K, the millennium bug is a computer programming flaw that could cause computer systems and other electronic devices programmed to record date information in two digits instead of four to malfunction or completely shut down at the turn of year 2000.

Mr Mallet said "we all live in a global economy that is increasingly inter-connected by complex electronic networks.

"It is, therefore, important that all countries work together to ensure that the commercial inter-dependencies that bind economies together are not disrupted by the millennium bug," Mr Mallet told a well-attended session on Y2K at the African-African American Conference in Accra.

The Conference, the Fifth of its kind to be held in Africa, has brought together over 5,000 delegates including government officials, private business concerns and tourists.

According to Mr Mallet, who controls a 16 billion-dollar budget department of the US, the Y2K presents the single serious technology challenge to the World.

The US and Africa have a stake in ensuring that the Y2K problem does not become the first global economic crisis of the next century.

Mr Mallet said the US government is particular about the problem in Africa because research has proved that many small and medium scale businesses dotted across Africa are vulnerable to the problem.

"We will, therefore, do everything possible within our resources to build linkages with these businesses that are mostly in the private sector to ensure smooth transition".

Aviation transportation, the financial sector and the telecommunication industry are some of the areas with international dimension, which are most likely to suffer from the bug in Africa.

But, Ghana is particularly worried about the petroleum industry, which is considered as the most critical area.

"We are concerned about the petroleum sector because of the high dependency of the Ghanaian economy on that sector," Commander P.M.G. Griffiths, a deputy Minister of Communications, said at the session.

The energy crisis of 1998 is enough experience for the country to guard against future occurrence.

"We cannot afford it (energy crisis) to happen again. That area is the mainstay of the economy and that a contingency plan must ensure that a disruption does not occur," he said.