The Minister-designate for Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has noted that the government intends to use all processes at their disposal to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic, one which is technology.

She was responding to a question by the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu on what she will do for Ghana to leverage ICT to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Minority Leader had stated that COVID-19 was a major problem for the country today with calls for urgent action which will require mainstreaming of ICT in the provision of public goods and services.

The nominee in her response said the Ministry of Communications has tried to assist the Health Ministry to leverage technology in dealing with the pandemic.

She said the emergency communication system is supposed to help with contact-tracing.

Appearing before the Vetting Committee of Parliament, she said the Ministry assisted the Health Ministry to facilitate barcoding for the public testing laboratories to enable them to be more efficient in collecting and dealing with samples.

She added that the Ministry had started rolling out the Smart Workplace Virtual Office Solution as far back as 2018 and were directed to scale up to enable all public officers on the platform to be able to work virtually.

The Ministry also set up the COVID-19 Tracker App to enable them self-report and assist Ghana Health Service to identify the areas with concentrations of COVID-19 positive patients and enable people to be advised to stay away from them.



Meanwhile, she has pledged to help nurture more confident, articulate young women.

She said she remains a lifelong advocate for the rights of women and children believing that we are equal partners in development with our menfolk.

She said she will do her best to raise and nurture a generation of assertive, intelligent, outspoken and hardworking, young women who can hold their own diligently in whichever position they hold.