A total of 80,000 laptops have been distributed by the government since the “Better Ghana Agenda Laptops Project” began under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.

A Director at the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST), Dr Benony Kortatsi, made the disclosure at a ceremony in Sekondi yesterday, to distribute 250 laptops to students in the Western Region.

He said government had promised to distribute an additional 400,000 laptops in the next couple of years and advised the beneficiaries to desist from engaging in cyber fraud, otherwise known as "sakawa", and downloading pornographic materials with the laptops.

He said for the country to close the technological gap between the advanced countries and the developing ones, there was the need to move the country’s economy from the resource-base to a knowledge-based one.

To this end, he said the NDC-led government initiated the “Better Ghana Agenda Laptops Project” to distribute laptops free of charge to basic, secondary and tertiary educational institutions and students to enhance teaching, learning and research.

Under the project, he said, students who applied to the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) would be given laptops after a needs assessment had been conducted.

Dr Kortatsi entreated the beneficiaries to make productive use of the equipment to move the country from the lower middle-income to upper middle-income status.

The Deputy Western Regional Minister, Madam Emelia Arthur, said education was vital for building the human resource capacity of every country and added that government was committed to equip the younger generation with science and technology to move the country forward.

She said the NDC government believed in fairness, equity and transparency and therefore would not discriminate in the distribution of the equipment because the programme was introduced to benefit all Ghanaians.

Source : GNA

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