Criminal Penalties Deter Market Entry

This provision makes it a criminal offense punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment to provide cybersecurity services without a license or act as a cybersecurity professional without accreditation. This goes far beyond standard regulatory practice—most democracies treat licensing violations as administrative matters with fines, not criminal imprisonment. For digital innovation, this creates an absolute barrier to market entry: startups cannot test services, researchers cannot conduct vulnerability research, and individual practitioners cannot operate informally before obtaining licenses. The vague directive-based offenses (criminalizing failure to comply with Authority directives) create additional uncertainty—innovators cannot know what conduct is criminal because it depends on executive directives that can change. Combined with the comprehensive licensing regime covering all cybersecurity providers, this will substantially deter entrepreneurship and shift innovation to established licensed entities, reducing competition and slowing innovation cycles in Ghana's cybersecurity sector.