The Minister of Communication, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu has told the media that the government will soon put before parliament a Cyber Security Bill for consideration.

Speaking Tuesday May 19, 2009 at the Meet-the-Press event in Accra he said the bill was part of efforts to check the rising internet fraud which has become rampant among Ghanaian youth.

The Minister said the bill would empower the security agencies and other organizations to “wage an effective war against cyber crime in the country.”

He said government was worried about the growing trend of internet fraud also known as ‘sakawa’ in Ghana, adding that one of the effective ways to deal with the phenomenon and to make it less attractive to the perpetrators was to pass laws.

Mr Iddrisu hinted that the National Communications Authority (NCA), the national regulator of the Information Technology and Communication (ICT) sector would embark on regular monitoring exercises of internet service providers to check their activities.

He warned that those found to be a hub for cyber criminals would have their licenses revoked. He also said that new applicants would be thoroughly scrutinized before licenses are given to them to operate.

Mr Iddrisu also announced that the Ministry in collaboration with the security agencies, would soon introduce a Cyber Emergency Response Team to monitor activities of criminals for the necessary action.

According to the Minister  the government cannot be successful in attempts to clamp down on crime if it did not get the support of the entire society and therefore called on service providers, security agencies and stakeholders to assist in the fight  against cyber crime.

Ghana, in recent times is gaining a bad reputation for cyber crimes.
According to the Ministry of Communications, about 82 cyber crimes occur in Ghana every month and that is approximately 1000 crimes yearly. As a result international orders on the internet from Ghana and Nigeria have been blocked  by businesses in the US and Canada.

Over 70% of international orders on the internet from Ghana and Nigeria have been locked due to fraud, according to American payment processor, CyberSource Corporation. A 2008 study shows that nearly 30% of the businesses surveyed who had once accepted international orders no longer accepted online orders from one or more countries due to the high levels of fraud.

“In that group, 76% of the merchants rejected orders from Nigeria, 58% froze trade with Ghana, and 32% with Pakistan”, CyberSource indicated.


By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi