The National Association of Secretarial and Internet Café Operators-Ghana, NASICOG, has been launched in Accra.
The event held on Saturday, November 26, 2022, saw Secretarial and Internet Café Operators across the country come together to deliberate on ways to make contributions towards government’s digitalisation agenda.
It was also used to inaugurate a seven-member national executive body for the Association.
The event was on the theme: “Ghana’s Digitalisation Agenda, the role of Internet Café Operators and Secretarial Service Providers”.
In a keynote address, the National President of NASICOG, Mr Bruce Thomas Suallah appealed to government to involve Café Operators in the digitalization agenda the country is embarking on.
He assured government of the Associations’ support.
According to him, Internet Café Operators play a major role in the lives and businesses of people and therefore need to be part of the digital processes.
Mr Suallah appealed to government to abolish the 15% Value Added Tax (VAT) proposed by the Finance Minister in his Thursday, November 24, 2022 budget and economic policy reading.
This he said, will help them acquire more digital devices like scanners and photocopiers whose prices are already sky rocketing.
He commended the West African Examination Council, WAEC for being the only State Institution that patronizes the services of Café and Secretarial Operators in its operations.
He, appealed to WAEC to make the national President of NASICOG a board member to enable the free flow of information from WAEC to NASICOG members and vice versa and appealed to WAEC to remove the cost of biometric renewals to lessen their financial burdens.
The Director of Research at the Communications Ministry, Alfred Nortey who was a guest speaker at the launch, assured the members that all is not lost for their business in government’s digitalisation agenda.
He said the ministry has in the pipeline policies that will see the secretarial and cafe operators in Ghana, play a pivotal role.
In attendance also was a representative from the Association of Ghanaian Industries who doubled as the chairman of the launch, Mr. Foster Plender.
