Ghana’s official government email service has been offline for almost two days, raising questions about the resilience of the state’s digital infrastructure and the potential risk to national security.
The .gov.gh domain, managed by the National Information Technology Agency (NITA), reportedly went down around 5:00 a.m. on Monday, 25 August, and has remained inaccessible since. The outage has disrupted communications across Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), many of which depend on the system for official correspondence.
Some government staff and analysts have speculated about a possible cyberattack, given the sensitive nature of the platform.
NITA, however, has attributed the disruption to a “technical challenge.” Speaking to Myjoyonline.com, NITA Chief Executive Officer Mark Oliver Kevor said engineers are working with the agency’s technical partner, eSolutions, to restore the service.
“There has been a technical challenge which we are addressing with our technology partners,” Kevor explained. Pressed on how long the issue might last, he admitted: “Not really. But joint technical teams are working on it.”
The prolonged downtime has heightened concerns about efficiency, data privacy, and continuity of government business. With email access blocked, some officials may resort to personal or alternative platforms—an option experts warn could create vulnerabilities.
Cybersecurity specialists note that the timing is troubling, coming as Africa faces a surge in cyberthreats targeting governments, banks, and critical infrastructure. They caution that extended outages risk undermining public confidence, slowing policy coordination, and opening the door to misinformation.
Observers say the incident may intensify calls for stronger investment in cybersecurity, redundant systems to prevent total outages, and more transparent crisis communication when state digital platforms fail.
