The Ghanaian government has selected private firm Lebara Ghana Ltd. to manage and commercialise its e-Government infrastructure, including government fibre and LTE network for a period of ten years.

Lebara has been tasked to ensure accountability and compliance with service quality requirements as contained in the SLA entered into with the communications ministry.

The infrastructure, previously managed by Ghana's National Information Technology Agency (NITA), was officially handed over to Lebara by Ghana's minister of communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful at a ceremony held in Accra.

David Amankwah, Board Chairman of Lebara, noted government's efforts to narrow the digital divide in Ghana and confirmed the company's readiness to meet its contractual obligations.

Owusu-Ekuful added that with pressure to manage the infrastructure now off the NITA, the agency can now focus entirely on its primary role as the regulator of the local tech ecosystem.

"It is increasingly becoming evident that NITA cannot be regulator and operator at the same time if it is going to do its work effectively," the Minister said.

Owusu-Ekuful encouraged Lebara to consider and introduce new solutions that would improve financial inclusion and narrow the digital divide.

These should include rural telephony project, accelerated backbone and last mile connectivity initiatives, she said.

The handover of the infrastructure management to Lebara has been delayed since October 2016 when the NITA entered a contract with Lebara for the commercialisation of the infrastructure for an initial ten-year period (renewable for an additional five years).

In May 2018, George Andah, Deputy Minister for Communications, confirmed the contract would be effective that month, but this was again delayed.