Communications, Digital Technology and Innovation Minister Samuel Nartey George has mounted a strong public defence of the National Information Technology Agency’s (NITA) fee enforcement regime, posting on X on Monday to push back against accusations that the agency is overreaching its legal mandate, as the standoff with Ghana’s technology sector deepens into a formal legal dispute.
At the centre of the controversy are claims by technology professionals that NITA is enforcing provisions of a proposed law not yet laid before Parliament. The backlash intensified ahead of a planned public discussion by NITA on X, where the agency was expected to defend draft provisions that critics say could extend licensing requirements across virtually every ICT activity, including software development, cloud services, digital platforms and Software as a Service (SaaS) operations.
“The proposed new legislation has NOT even been laid before Parliament,” the minister stated, dismissing the allegations as “spurious” and accusing critics of jumping onto “bandwagon trends” without understanding the legal framework governing the agency.
George cited Act 771 (National Information Technology Agency Act, 2008), Act 772 (Electronic Transactions Act, 2008), L.I. 2481 (Fees and Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations, 2023) and L.I. 2512 (the 2025 amendment) as the legal instruments underpinning the current enforcement actions, and challenged critics to identify any NITA action that falls outside those laws.
In a detailed press statement issued on May 22, 2026, NITA said recent publications on social media contained “serious misconceptions” regarding its legal authority. Among the fees cited were GH¢20,000 for fintech entity accreditation and GH¢10,000 for e-commerce service provider accreditation, which NITA said were explicitly contained in L.I. 2481 and not newly introduced by the pending legislation.
However, the government’s position faces a substantive legal challenge from an unlikely direction. Policy think tank IMANI Africa argues that NITA is attempting to manufacture a substantive regulatory mandate out of a general financial instrument, and that the agency’s own founding legislation explicitly prohibits the licensing sweep it is now pursuing. IMANI’s analysis argues that relying on the Fees and Charges Act to justify individual ICT professional licensing constitutes regulation by invoicing rather than genuine statutory authority.
Digital policy commentator MacJordan Degadjor focused attention on Sections 35 to 37 of the draft bill, warning that provisions limiting licences to companies wholly owned by Ghanaian citizens would deter foreign investment and venture capital participation in local startups, citing homegrown firms Hubtel and mPharma as examples of what is at stake.
The dispute arrives at a sensitive moment. Ghana’s government is simultaneously pursuing digital transformation as an economic strategy while startups and fintech operators warn that rising compliance costs threaten to price emerging businesses out of formal participation in the digital economy before they can scale.
