Joe Anokye confirmed as Director General of NCA

Anokye has been confirmed by the Public Services Commission as the substantive Director-General of the National Communications Authority.
His confirmation comes barely a year after His Excellency the President had appointed him as the acting Director General of the communications regulator. The confirmation was done in accordance with the advice of the Governing Board of the NCA and given in consultation with the Public Services Commission.
Successes chalked as Acting DG
Since January 2017 when Joe Anokye started work in an acting capacity with the NCA, he has led the Authority to enforce and enact some key regulatory decisions. In that period, the NCA has strengthened its mandate with key spectrum audits for TV and radio which have led to increase in compliance by players in the industry.
In addition to supervising the first of a kind mobile network operator (MNO) merger in the history of the regulator and between two (2) key operators (Airtel Ghana Limited and Millicom – Tigo Ghana Limited), the Authority has also constituted six (6) teams called Service Monitoring Owners to ensure regulatory compliance of the 26 services it regulates.
Other achievements over the year include supporting government’s agenda by enabling the MNOs deploy UMTS-900 in unserved and underserved communities to improve data penetration. The NCA has also installed a Network Monitoring System (NMS) that gives full visibility of the core networks of Mobile Network Operators (MNO), as well as the installation of Nemo Invex Equipment to measure all the requisite KPIs pertaining to CDMA, voice quality and LTE. There is also now a complete database on all the network infrastructure of telecom services.
The NCA is also on the verge of establishing a Type Approval lab which will be a pioneer to be studied by other regulators on the continent. The Authority, through its newly established cyber security unit set up periodic scanning and mitigation of computer security on the network. The NCA-CERT is being set up with initial engagement of some telecommunications organisations on Cyber Security readiness. Nationally, the NCA has supported capacity building programs such as GLACY+ including providing trainers for trainer-of-trainers programs.
 Background of Joe Anokye
 Joe Anokye is a Telecommunication Executive well vested in a wide range of Telecommunication Management, Telecommunication Networks and Cyber Security platforms in both public and private sector. He has over twenty-two (22) years hands-on technical and management experience across Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. From January 1997 to February 2016, Mr. Anokye worked on several contracts at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland – USA as a Senior Telecommunications Consultant, including supervising NASA’s Global Mission Telecommunication Wide Area Network (WAN) technical team.
During his time at NASA, Mr. Anokye worked collaboratively with Telecom and Network engineers from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, German Space Operations Centre, Canadian Space Agency, Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and many other national Space Programs like the Jet Propulsion Lab in California. In recognition of his efforts, he received the 2007 Employee of the Year Award from the NASA Information Technology Services contract at Marshal Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville – Alabama, for outstanding technical services to the NASA Mission Telecommunications Network.
Mr. Anokye was a premier Cisco Technical Instructor from 1999 through 2016 in Washington D.C, USA Metropolitan Area teaching and mentoring many Telecommunications, Network, and Systems engineers who work with governmental and private institutions within the security, financial and regulatory areas amongst others. From 1999-2001, Mr. Anokye did consulting work for Sprint Nextel (Managed Network Services) and was the Network Technical Engineer responsible for major accounts like KMART, Charles Schwab, UNICOR and Federal Prisons Industries to name a few.
As the principal network architect, he developed the Telecommunications Master Plan from which a design was made to install the network infrastructure to support the ICT systems used for the Year 2011 Population Census of Bangladesh, a country with a population of over 140 Million. In addition to the plan, Mr. Anokye provided local and continuous technical support for the implementation in Bangladesh. He was the Chief Technology Officer of JMAT Systems, LLC, an Information Services company established in 2007 and headquartered in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA offering Information Technology and Security Services to commercial, state, and Federal Government customers.
Within Africa, Mr. Anokye has also worked on various Telecommunications Networks projects in Africa, primarily in Ghana and Liberia. In Ghana, he has consulted for the Merchant Bank and in addition, trained on behalf of CISCO, staff of Ghana Telecom, Merchant Bank Ghana Ltd and the telecommunication wing of National Security of the Bureau of National Communication. Mr. Anokye obtained his first degree in Geodetic Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and his MBA from the University of Maryland University College, USA.
A talented and accomplished Technology Executive, Mr. Anokye has a proven record in leading technology transformation, improvement initiatives and aligning technology services with business objectives. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to Ghana’s communication industry and will be instrumental in efforts to expand Ghana’s communication network to support our developmental objectives or local and international organisations, including the Volta River Authority, Ashanti Goldfields, VOIP International Gateway for NITEL ‐ Nigeria, Sun Solaris installation & configuration for Ghana Telecom, GCB and Ministry of Finance and VOIP gateway for Westel (now Airtel). He has also been instrumental in the initiation and development of Internet Services in Ghana, Togo, Nigeria and Gambia.