NCA Boss bags two prestigious awards

The Director General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Dr. Joe Anokye, has recently been honoured with two (2) distinguished awards at different ceremonies held in Accra.  

Dr. Anokye was named the Outstanding Corporate Communications Personality of the Decade 2023 at the 14^th Edition of the Ghana Entrepreneur and Corporate Executive Awards in March this year. He again received the Exemplary Leadership Award (Technology Sector) at the prestigious Ghana Business and Innovation Awards.

A statement from the NCA said since his appointment as Director General, Dr. Joe Anokye has been recognised for his exceptional leadership in managing Ghana’s communications industry. In 2018, he was awarded the Best Telecommunications Authority Industry CEO of the Year (Public Sector) at the Ghana Entrepreneur and Corporate Executive Awards. Subsequently in 2019, he was honoured as the  Telecom Regulatory CEO of the Year at the 9^th Ghana Information Technology and Telecom Awards (GITTA) held in Accra.

Through his hard work and distinguished direction, he also secured a spot among the Top 20 Tech Leaders in Ghana and the sub-region in 2022 and the Top 50 Digital Economy Leaders in Africa in 2023

These awards testify to Dr. Anokye’s dedication to duty, penchant for excellence and visionary leadership over the last seven years as the Director General of Ghana’s electronic communications Regulator. His dexterity for flawless execution undergirded by purposeful planning, team work, thorough preparation and test runs led to the successful completion of many projects aimed at transforming the NCA’s internal processes and improving the performance of the communications industry in Ghana.

He has overseen the widespread deployment of tools and systems to improve the NCA’s performance in licensing, monitoring and enforcement which are core statutory functions of the Authority. The new Automated Spectrum Management System (ASMS) has introduced electronic processing of spectrum applications with all the standard tasks within the licensing workflow, including technical analysis and invoicing, conducted within the same environment with automatic generation of licence documents and alerts on payment deadlines, licence renewals, etc. This has led to the establishment of a reliable database for spectrum licenses and laid the foundation for customers to receive more efficient services from the NCA once the customer web portal of the ASMS is launched.

The monitoring functions of the Authority have been refreshed and expanded with the acquisition of new mobile spectrum monitoring systems, portable spectrum analysers and the establishment of the state-of-the-art Broadcasting Monitoring Centre, Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) for cybersecurity monitoring of the Telecom industry and the Common Platform for the monitoring of Government revenues in the communications sector. Tools for Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring and billing verification have been refreshed, updated or replaced. The NCA’s I.T. infrastructure has also been enhanced under Dr. Anokye’s leadership.

He established a number of “horizontal” ad-hoc teams, across Divisions to enhance teamwork, increase the level of collaboration and streamline better decision making. Key examples include the Service Monitoring Owners (SMO) teams, SIM Card Registration Implementation Team and the Significant Market Power (SMP) Operations team, among others.

Dr. Anokye’s foresight, technical depth and analytical acumen brought about key regulatory interventions aimed at boosting growth and resilience of the industry following the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing reliance on communications infrastructure for business, social interaction, education and economic growth.

Some of the key industry interventions include the following:

1. Directives to MNOs in the year 2020, requiring them to establish and maintain physical cable connections to at least three (3) submarine cable providers for redundancy and resilience to avert future internet disruptions. This directive averted a complete internet blackout during the March 14, 2024 incident, affecting four (4) submarine cables connecting Ghana to the Internet. His steady leadership during the crisis led to a rapid restoration of Internet services before the repair of the damaged cables.
2. Introduction of UMTS 900 (U-900) to enable Mobile Operators deploy 3G services in their 900MHz frequency assignments to expand and improve data services in the Ghana.
3. Classification and declaration of MTN as a Significant Market Power (SMP) to establish the basis for the application of remedial measures to correct imbalances in the telecom market and to protect competition. Some of the remedies implemented include asymmetric interconnection in favour of ‘smaller’ operators, technology neutrality, national roaming, regulation of the tariffs of the SMP, etc.
4. Successful execution of the SIM card re-registration exercise in Ghana, which established a secure SIM database.
5. Introduction of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) through a pilot project in two cities, Accra and Kumasi, making Ghana a pioneer of DAB in West Africa and the fourth country in Africa to deploy the digital sound broadcasting technology.
6. Introduction of new technical conditions to enable the use of adjacent frequency channels for FM radio broadcasting in the same coverage area. This helped to alleviate the frequency constraints in the major cities of the country.
7. Development of a satellite licensing framework to cater for the new services offered by operators in the non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO).

Under the leadership of Dr. Anokye, the NCA has implemented Government policies and collaborated effectively with other state agencies in the communications sector. The Authority actively participates in the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation’s Girls in ICT programme, mentoring 100 selected participants as part of the 2023 National Girls in ICT Initiative.

The public recognition of Dr. Anokye’s leadership contributions to the Communications sector through the awards, attests to the impact of his good work at the Authority. There has been a significant increase in the number of visits from sister Regulators in Africa to the NCA to benchmark regulatory initiatives or to understudy the design and implementation of key regulatory tools and systems.

The Board, Management and Staff of the NCA congratulate Dr. Joe Anokye for his remarkable contributions and sterling leadership.