IOT READINESS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT TEAMS WITHIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS IN GHANA

The Government of Ghana (GoG) is deploying “Paperless Systems” in Public Service Organizations which includes the Local Government Services (LGS). This initiative is part of the GoG's e-governance drive promulgated in 2003 and established by the Information Communications Technology for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) policy. Paperless systems, however, run on the concept of the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) in organizations. This paper evaluates the Internet of things (IoT) readiness of regional project coordinating directorates within Local Government Organizations (LGOs) in Ghana. Primary data is obtained through purposively sampling ten (10) respondents who are the directors of the Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs). The “Goodness of Fit Chi-square Test” s is employed to ascertain the disparity between observed and expected data in all four (4) critical areas required for the operationalization of the IoT at the regional Level. Empirical results revealed that there is still the extensive utilization of non-digitized modes of reporting, procurement and management of projects within these organizations even with the few computers assembled. Secondary data further reveals that no real funding or budget line has been allocated for IoT deployment and Information Technology (IT) systems improvement within these organizations. The paper posits that GoG may have to rethink the decision to go paperless in the LGOs in the short term. The conclusion, however, is that the GoG's drive, adoption and operationalization of development projects using the paperless system could also be disrupted through cyber attacks and could fail. GoG could address these challenges by embarking on extensive ICT infrastructure improvement and training of project personnel in all LGOs