Author: Kay Codjoe, Market Research Consultant and Volunteer Associate at the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education

On 29 October 2025, in my op-ed A Cyber Coup d’État?, I warned that Ghana was quietly constructing a dangerously centralised and fragmented digital governance architecture disguised as modernisation.

Then came Part II after Canadian-based Ghanaian tech professional Jay Kwashie triggered nationwide scrutiny by exposing serious ambiguities within the proposed NITA Bill and related digital reforms.

Instead of calming fears, Hon. Samuel Nartey George’s response deepened them. Now comes Part III. And this may be the most constitutionally dangerous revelation yet. Because Ghana is no longer merely debating what the proposed NITA amendments might do in future.

The public is now staring at what appears to be a live regulatory and monetisation ecosystem already standing operationally before Parliament itself has even spoken. That changes everything.

The proposed NITA Amendment Bill is still under stakeholder consultation, pending Cabinet consideration, awaiting Attorney-General review, not yet laid before Parliament under Article 106 of the 1992 Constitution, not debated, not passed, not assented to, and not gazetted into enforceable law.

In constitutional terms, the proposed amendments do not yet possess the force of law. Yet astonishingly, the NITA regulatory portal is already publicly advertising and operationalising certification systems, registration structures, fee schedules, annual renewal obligations, compliance categories, professional classifications, and quasi-licensing ecosystems targeting Ghanaian IT professionals and private-sector digital firms.

This is where the matter stops looking like policy preparation and starts entering dangerous administrative law territory. Because somebody inside Hon. Sam George’s Ministry and inside NITA must answer a devastatingly simple legal question:

By what CURRENT lawful authority are these expansive implementation-style systems already operational? That question matters because under Ghanaian constitutional and administrative law, public institutions possess no inherent power. They may only exercise powers expressly granted by existing enacted law. Not future law, not intended law, not “the Bill Parliament may pass later,” but existing law.

Article 23 of the 1992 Constitution requires administrative bodies to act fairly, reasonably, and within lawful authority. Article 296 further constrains discretionary power from becoming arbitrary, capricious, or abusive. The Supreme Court in Tuffuor v Attorney-General reaffirmed constitutional supremacy over executive convenience.

In Republic v High Court, Ex Parte CHRAJ, the courts reinforced that statutory bodies must remain within the four corners of their enabling legislation. In plain English: Government agencies cannot manufacture tomorrow’s powers for themselves today. Yet this is precisely the terrifying impression now forming around NITA.

The same Ministry loudly insisting: “The Bill is not yet law” is simultaneously presiding over portals already advertising GH₵35,000 application fees for Data Brokers, GH₵30,000 for Cybersecurity Service 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 App Developers, plus annual renewals hanging around the neck of Ghana’s digital economy like bureaucratic chains.

And this is happening in a country where youth unemployment is severe, startups struggle for capital, electricity instability persists, and digital entrepreneurship remains one of the few surviving ladders for upward mobility. Yet somebody inside this Ministry looked at Ghana’s struggling innovation ecosystem and apparently concluded: “What this country desperately needs is more registration, more certification, more renewals, more fees, more checkpoints, and more bureaucratic gatekeeping.”

This is beginning to resemble digital tollbooths disguised as regulation. A young software engineer in Kumasi struggling with ECG outages, fuel costs, internet expenses, and no investor backing may now find himself navigating certification structures, registration frameworks, renewal obligations, compliance systems, and overlapping regulators before his company even reaches profitability.

A cybersecurity startup attempting to scale may suddenly stare at GH₵30,000 application fees and GH₵20,000 annual renewals in an economy where many graduates cannot even secure stable employment.

What exactly is this, digital governance or digital extortion, because this no longer resembles ordinary regulation? It increasingly resembles a Ministry discovering a monetisation machine hiding inside state regulation. Everybody registers, certifies, renews, and pays. And if citizens dare question the legality, they are insulted publicly as “ignorant.” No. Ghanaians are not fools.

Mr. President, respectfully, your Minister is creating the dangerous public impression that executive agencies can begin constructing enforcement ecosystems before democratic legitimacy itself has matured.

This entire spectacle now creates the dangerous public impression that Hon. Sam George’s Ministry is so intoxicated with regulatory ambition that it has begun behaving as though parliamentary approval is merely a ceremonial inconvenience standing between the Executive and its revenue architecture.

That perception is politically catastrophic. And legally dangerous. Because if these structures exceed the lawful scope of the existing National Information Technology Agency Act, 2008 (Act 771), then the Ministry and NITA may be entering territory involving ultra vires administrative conduct, unlawful fee imposition, abuse of delegated authority, procedural impropriety, and potential constitutional challenge.

Courts do not enforce ministerial intentions. Courts enforce enacted authority. That distinction may become fatal in this entire matter. Hon. Sam George’s greatest political problem now is no longer merely the Bill itself.

It is the growing perception that criticism irritates him, scrutiny offends him, and executive ambition around him increasingly behaves like legality can simply catch up later. That is dangerous governance. Because once Ministries begin behaving like law before the law exists, democracy itself begins quietly bleeding beneath the carpet.

And to the officials inside NITA quietly uploading these astonishing fee structures and operationalising these frameworks before Parliament itself has spoken: Do you genuinely believe history will remember this as visionary governance? Or will it remember this moment for exactly what it increasingly resembles: A digital coup before the law exists.