Accra (Greater Accra) 28 May '99

The Third West African Computing and Telecommunications Expo '99 opened in Accra on Thursday with the Y2K problem assuming centre stage in all discussions and presentations.

The three-day Conference and Exhibition, dubbed See The Future - Shape the Future, is organised by African Intermediate Technology Exhibitions and Conferences (AITEC).

Mr John Mahama, Minister of Communications, said government, realising the dire implications of the problem, has come out with a strategy.

"A new Y2K project has been set up in the Ministry of Communications where a national inventory has been completed, and an assessment of the scope of the problem has been made," saying "solution providers from a database compiled at the Y2K office are being assigned to assist distressed organisations".

He said a number of seminars have been held with the private sector, where they are deemed to be "far ahead in their Y2K compliance programme".

The Y2K problem is one in which computer softwares and micro-processes will not be able to recognise or transform to four digit years such as 2000. This will cause information loss or distortion.

It can also cause systems to give wrong information and not to recognise date fed into it.

The Minister said the communications sector has truly given reality to the often repeated adage of the private sector being the engine of growth.

"In the mass media, from a situation in which we had a state monopoly of print, radio and TV mediums, we have in this short while converted to a state of over 30 regular newspapers and magazines, 25 radio stations and four TV stations, mostly privately owned, except GTV.

" In telecommunications, government's liberalisation has broken state monopoly of the former P & T to a situation of three mobile phone operators, two national network operators and numerous internet service providers and data transmission companies", Mr Mahama said

Mr Sean Moroney, Group Chairman of AITEC, said AITEC is committed to its markets and has a bright and business oriented vision of electronic issues in Africa.

AITEC now has offices in Ghana, Kenya Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa.