The Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation has said it has advanced plans to establish a Science Technology and Innovation (STI) Fund to drive government’s agenda of promoting innovation in the country.
According to the sector Minister, Professor KwabenaFrimpong-Boateng, the STI Fund should among others guide the allocation and disbursement of the government’s funding support to drive its innovation agenda.
Professor Frimpong-Boateng disclosed this in an interview at this year’s Innovation Summit as part of the Citi Business Festival.
“We have finished drafting the innovation policy; we are going to set up the STI fund and everything that goes into it.
We will pass a law that will accommodate all these things and when that is done, and when we are given the money, then we know where to put it in order to assess the disbursements,” he asserted. President Akufo-Addo has disclosed that the government will allocate one percent of the country’s GDP to develop innovative ideas that will culminate in economic growth.
As part of measures to guide the effective utilization of this proposed allocation, the Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry has also completed a draft innovation policy.
Professor Frimpong-Boateng stated that the draft policy will soon be presented to Parliament following cabinet approval.
Though the Minister could not readily mention when all these would be completed, he was confident the efforts should see all the policies through by the end of this year.
“These are all the legal things that we have to do and they also form part of the innovation system.
These things would be done this year; we already have the draft policy to be approved by cabinet for onward submission to Parliament after approval by the Attorney General’s Department,”
“So it goes through a lot of processes, but we hope that in the course of the year, we may have things through,” he added.
The Innovation Summit is the highlight of the month long Citi Business Festival.
This year’s edition of the Innovation Summit is on the theme, “Creating Our Future”.
The event witnessed massive patronage by state officials, existing and new innovators as well as business industry players with keen interest in solving societies’ complex challenges via innovation.