IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The country’s National Electoral Commission decided on the use of the new system of registration.

Registrants will have a picture taken and provide their thumbprints. This information will be used to make sure that there are no duplicated voters and ensure the integrity of the country’s voter registry.

The Government of Sierra Leone wants to use technology to transform Sierra Leone into an innovation nation; in this regard, its Directorate of Science, Technology, and Innovation (DSTI Sierra Leone) has secured a new partnership with the e-Governance Academy of Estonia (eGA). The eGA is a global leader for digital transformation for central and local governments.

DSTI Sierra Leone and eGA have signed a three-year MoU to establish technical collaboration on e-governance for public service delivery and administration in Sierra Leone.

Personally receiving the cable, His Excellency President of the Republic of Sierra Leone Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma expressed thanks to the World Bank for providing the funds for the project. He referred to the occasion as a great moment for Sierra Leone, adding that it’s a further sign of the ongoing transformation in Sierra Leone. He said the fibre-optic cable’s arrival in Sierra Leone will take the country from its limited satellite system of communication in which it operates on presently to a high-speed modern cable communication.

"This project that is about to be launched fulfills one of the requirements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), since information and communications technology (ICT) has been recognized as an engine for growth," said Vice President Sam Sumana at a recent Freetown workshop organized to publicize the project.

The system comprises a fiber-optic network that will cover all government offices for communication within ministries, agencies and departments.

"There is still an ongoing process to identify personnel to be trained and work with the Indians (engineers) noting that they are only supporting the project for five years in terms of equipment and human resource," said Health and Sanitation Minister Sheku Tejan Koroma last week while briefing journalists on the current state of the Telemedicine Project -- the part of the broader pan-African plan in which Sierra Leone is participating.

Sierra Leone's National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM) is now all set for a two days Regional Ministerial Consultative Conference on Ebola slated to commence tomorrow 26 August 2015, at the Bintumani International Conference Centre, Aberdeen, Freetown. The conference is co-organized by the Government of Sierra Leone and International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in consultation with the Governments of Liberia and Guinea. His Excellency President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, will officially launch the event which will receive in audience, Ministers of Information and Communications; Ministers of Health from over 20 countries; National Regulatory Authorities of the Telecom Sector in West Africa & beyond, UN Agencies, NERC, International NGOs, MDAs, Telcos, Facebook executives and more.

In a bid to ensure an effective procurement system, the National Public Procurement Authority NPPA has on the 1st of March 2021 introduced the electronic procurement system to government, private and civil society organizations through a nationwide sensitization exercise in Kenema.

The Project Manager of the facility at Ministry of Finance, Adams Tommy told the gathering that the government wants to implement the electronic government procurement process as a way of managing government resources. "NPPA wants to use electronic printing machines not human beings," he said.

Officially launching the country's ICT advisory council, the president said: "ICT should be integral in our attempts to transform Sierra Leone and the advisory council must hit the ground running. We should live no stone unturned because there are great benefits."

Koroma called on all stakeholders to provide the necessary guidelines for ICT activities, while pointing out that mobile penetration in the country currently stands at 35%.

Information and communications technology is one of the important ways to boost the country's economy during the post-Ebola recovery, says Antonio Caramba-Coker, member of Growth Access Solution.

She was speaking during a Private Sector Resilience, Recovery and Resurgence workshop hosted at the Sierra Lighthouse Hotel, Aberdeen in Freetown last week. She noted that efficient and effective delivery of government services through e-Government initiatives could potently benefit business and reduce costs.

He described the reports as ‘misleading’ and mere ‘fabrication of lies.’

Commissioner Aiah Mattia said the machine in Tonkolili had developed some problems and had to be taken to Freetown for repairs, adding that it was during this event that people thought that it had disappeared.

In a bid to reduce reckless spending during procurement by the Government of Sierra Leone, an Information Communication Technology (ICT) system is to be developed to weed out weak paper base procurement procedures.

The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in collaboration with the National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA) with support from the World Bank yesterday organized a one day conference on E-Government Procurement System at the Miatta Conference Hall in Freetown.

Several stakeholders from the public and the private sector attended the E-Procurement conference on the theme “enhancing public procurement efficiency a case for E-Government procurement.”

The Government of Sierra Leone has lamented that it can no longer afford to subsidise the cost of passports for its citizens. This was revealed at the launching the new e-passport (Biometric) for citizens at the Ministry of Internal Affairs Conference Hall at Gloucester Street, Freetown on Monday August 31st 2015. In his statement, the Minister of Internal Affairs, J. B. Dauda said government over the years has been investing heavily in the production of passports which resulted in subsidizing each passport purchased for only One Hundred thousand Leones by citizens with an additional top-up from government of a whopping Two Hundred Thousand Leones to the passport manufacturer. That was for the ordinary machine-readable passports. The country was now moving from machine-readable to the more sophisticated and expensive Biometric E-Passports.

The Programme will be chaired by Alhaji Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, Minister of Information and Communications who in June last year signed the ACE Construction and Maintenance Agreement in Paris on behalf of the Government of Sierra Leone.

The cable has been landed received and commissioned by no less a person but President Ernest Bia Koroma. Since the landing of the cable many Sierra Leoneans both home and abroad are still asking why the landing of the cable is unable to improve the country’s ICT sector soonest.

The project is currently being managed by Sierra Leone Cable Limited (SALCAB) and HUAWAI and sponsored by the Government of Sierra Leone and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB).

Keynote address by His Excellency the President, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, at the launching of the e-Governance Platform for effective and efficient service delivery at the Miatta Conference Centre, Freetown, Thursday 24th March, 2016.

Salutations,

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen,

We live in a new world; a world that has become increasingly smaller and interconnected; we live in a world in which the needs of our citizens and the ways to address them have become more complex; we live in the world of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTS). In this new world, physical boundaries are no longer an impediment to national development, information and knowledge are no longer restricted to a few privileged people, government and the private sector can no longer do business as usual. ICTs have led to a significant evolution in the pattern and posture of governance towards a more citizen-centric and result-oriented system.

The Advisory Council comprises of policy makers, regulators, network operators, service providers, universities, civil society, and associations of consumers, private companies and the Chamber of Commerce.

The ICT Advisory Council was created by the government on the recommendations of the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) to ensure a participatory approach for the development of the ICT sector. The Council shall formulate ICT objectives and implementation plans, develop national ICT standards and guidelines and monitor the implementation of policy plans and evaluating the results.

The project will make communication cheaper and affordable for all, and hopefully, the cable will land on the 23 September and to be fully operational come July 2012.

Delivering his keynote address, President Koroma said on 5th June 2010, he authorized the Minister of Information and Communications to sign the construction and maintenance agreement on behalf of government and the people of Sierra Leone to reinstate our commitment to landing the fiber optic cable in Sierra Leone by 2012. He added that in order to fast-track the process, “I approached the World Bank to assist in providing the required funds to meet our financial obligations to the consortium for the signing of the financing agreement of the WARCIP with the International Development Association”.