“YOU GO EXPLAIN TAYA” is not merely Ghanaian street humour. It is when a man storms the public square with ministerial swagger only to discover halfway through the argument that the hole they dug is deeper than the National Cathedral crater and larger than ministerial ego itself.
Unfortunately for NITA, that proverb now hangs over this entire digital governance controversy like a constitutional obituary.
Because after reading NITA’s official response dated 22 ... see more
“YOU GO EXPLAIN TAYA” is not merely Ghanaian street humour. It is when a man storms the public square with ministerial swagger only to discover halfway through the argument that the hole they dug is deeper than the National Cathedral crater and larger than ministerial ego itself.
Unfortunately for NITA, that proverb now hangs over this entire digital governance controversy like a constitutional obituary.
Because after reading NITA’s official response dated 22 May 2026 side by side with the law itself, one brutal constitutional truth immediately emerged:
The problem is no longer merely the fees.
The problem is that the architects of this regulatory Frankenstein appear to have discovered the law only after the backlash started.
The entire NITA response reads like a legal afterthought drafted by people who suddenly realized citizens had actually opened the Constitution, examined Act 771, examined Act 772, inspected the Legislative Instruments, and started asking dangerous questions instead of merely shouting.
That changed everything. NITA’s response did not kill the criticism. It confessed the weakness.
For months, Ghanaians were told the proposed NITA Bill was necessary to modernise Ghana’s digital governance architecture through cybersecurity reforms, digital trust services, artificial intelligence, certification systems, licensing reforms, and expanded digital oversight.
Then citizens discovered operational portals already displaying registration systems, fee schedules, certification frameworks, renewals, compliance structures, and quasi-licensing ecosystems targeting broad sections of Ghana’s digital economy.
Suddenly the explanation changed:
“Oh no. These powers already existed all along.”
Like a man hiding a goat in his room and later claiming the smell was part of the architecture all along.
That contradiction is fatal.
Because the Ministry is now trying to stand in two constitutional boats while the river is moving.
On one hand, citizens were told the proposed Bill was necessary to create the future architecture.
Then once scrutiny intensified, the explanation suddenly became:
“The architecture already existed.”
Those two positions cannot coexist forever under constitutional examination.
Because if the current framework under Act 771, Act 772, and the existing Legislative Instruments already adequately empower NITA to run this sprawling ecosystem, then what exactly is the sweeping urgency behind the proposed Bill itself?
Why seek broader statutory reinforcement for powers already allegedly sufficient?
Why build new architecture around enforcement, inspections, sanctions, AI governance, tribunals, SaaS licensing, cloud-hosting regulation, ICT certification, and expanded oversight if the current legal framework already supports the structure?
The answer quietly sits inside the proposed Bill itself.
Because the proposed Bill reads less like ordinary reform and more like a desperate constitutional reinforcement package for powers that were never clearly grounded enough in the first place.
That is where the whole thing starts collapsing like wet kenkey under pressure.
NITA repeatedly cites Section 2 of Act 771, which states that the Agency exists to “regulate the provision of information communications technology.”
Fine.
They further cite Section 3(1)(c), which permits the Agency to issue licences under the Act.
Also fine.
But here comes the constitutional ambush hiding inside their own argument:
Regulatory authority is not infinite authority.
Nothing inside Act 771 explicitly authorises the monetised gatekeeping ecosystem now emerging around fintech entities, data brokers, cybersecurity providers, analytics firms, app developers, e-commerce operators, and layered compliance structures hanging over private enterprise.
The deeper problem is that NITA appears to be attempting what can only be described as regulation by invoicing.
Because the Agency’s current defense relies heavily on a Fees and Charges framework as though the power to collect money automatically creates the power to build an entire occupational licensing regime around it.
It does not.
A pricing schedule is not a constitutional birth certificate for regulatory authority.
The Fees and Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act was fundamentally designed as a national pricing framework for services already lawfully grounded elsewhere in statute.
Not as a magical legal factory for manufacturing entirely new supervisory empires over emerging sectors of the economy.
Pricing does not equal permission.
Revenue collection does not automatically become constitutional authority.
And bureaucratic appetite does not become law merely because an invoice was gazetted.
More dangerously for NITA, Act 772 itself quietly weakens the Agency’s entire public defense.
Because the certification and licensing regime under the Electronic Transactions Act was never designed as a universal occupational licensing system for ordinary ICT professionals.
Act 772 specifically targets authentication services, encryption services, digital certificates, and related electronic transaction infrastructure.
In fact, the Act expressly provides that:
“A licence shall not be issued or granted by the Agency to an individual.”
That sentence alone detonates a large portion of the present confusion.
Because software developers, coders, data analysts, app creators, UI designers, and ordinary ICT professionals are natural persons.
Act 772 was not built to operate like the General Legal Council or the Medical and Dental Council regulating individual professional practice.
That distinction matters enormously.
Because under Ghanaian administrative law, public institutions are creatures of statute.
They possess only powers expressly granted or necessarily incidental to lawful functions.
Not powers manufactured through bureaucratic creativity and defended later through press statements dressed in legal vocabulary.
The Supreme Court itself has repeatedly affirmed that statutory bodies must remain within the four corners of their enabling legislation.
That is precisely why the ultra vires doctrine exists.
That is precisely why Articles 23 and 296 of the Constitution exist.
Article 23 requires administrative bodies to act fairly, reasonably, and within lawful authority.
Article 296 prohibits arbitrary exercise of discretionary power.
In simple English, government agencies cannot wake up one morning, discover a broad phrase like “regulate ICT,” and suddenly behave like Parliament handed them ownership papers over Ghana’s entire digital economy.
NITA’s reliance on L.I. 2481 and L.I. 2512 also collapses under closer legal scrutiny.
Yes, the Legislative Instruments exist.
Yes, they matured constitutionally after being laid before Parliament under Article 11(7) of the Constitution.
Nobody disputes that.
But subsidiary legislation remains subordinate legislation.
An LI cannot outrun the parent statute itself.
More dangerously, NITA does not even possess a standalone comprehensive licensing Legislative Instrument expressly creating this broad occupational and commercial licensing regime over Ghana’s digital economy.
What exists are narrow sector-specific provisions under Act 772 dealing primarily with authentication services, encryption services, digital certificates, and related electronic transaction infrastructure, alongside fee schedules under Act 1080 and its related instruments.
And that legislative vacuum explains the panic underneath the current response.
Because for years, no comprehensive operational Legislative Instrument was enacted to fully execute the broad ambitions now being publicly defended.
So what emerged instead was administrative improvisation: construct the fee architecture first, operationalise the registration regime second, then search for constitutional reinforcement afterward.
That is why the proposed Bill now reads less like innovation reform and more like retroactive legal engineering for powers already being exercised ahead of clear statutory grounding.
And this is where the economic absurdity becomes impossible to ignore: GH?35,000 for Data Brokers, GH?30,000 for Cybersecurity Providers, GH?28,000 for Data Analytics Providers, GH?20,000 for Fintech Entities, GH?10,000 for E-Commerce Platforms, and GH?6,000 for Mobile Application Developers.
Inside an economy battling unemployment, startup mortality, unstable electricity, weak venture capital access, and collapsing purchasing power.
Then NITA calmly describes this as:
“regulatory burden.”
Regulatory burden?
In constitutional law, this is beginning to resemble a state-designed monetisation maze disguised as regulation.
Because what exactly is the limiting principle here? Today it is fintechs. Tomorrow cloud providers, AI startups, digital creators, and eventually anybody building from a laptop.
The frightening part is not merely the fees, but the philosophy hiding underneath them.
Because healthy regulation says:
“Operate responsibly.”
Dangerous regulation says:
“You require our continuing permission to exist.”
What NITA risks constructing is the digital version of the Red Flag Act:
forcing a decentralized global innovation ecosystem into a slow-moving bureaucratic checkpoint culture built for permission, paperwork, and recurring revenue extraction.
The internet does not ask a Ghanaian coder for bureaucratic permission before recognising brilliance.
Code either works or it does not.
Innovation either scales or it collapses.
Attempting to trap that ecosystem inside mandatory bureaucratic gatekeeping is not digital transformation.
The issue is whether Ghana is drifting toward a future where executive agencies construct economic control systems first and search for constitutional permission afterward.
First comes centralisation, registration, licensing, certification, renewals, fees, layered compliance, overlapping institutional control, and finally aggressive press statements whenever citizens ask dangerous questions.
The quiet comedy underneath NITA’s response is that an entire state institution wrote pages defending itself while carefully avoiding the citizen whose arguments forced the response.
The answer now is civic vigilance, constitutional restraint, and citizen-led accountability before administrative overreach becomes normalised.
Kay Codjoe See less
— with National Information Technology Agency.
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