Call minister to order

As the President embarks on a trip to Malaysia to confer with his Malaysian colleague and be confronted with the might of Telekom Malaysia in the scheme of things of that country, former Minister for Communications and MP for Bole/Bamboi John Dramani Mahama has expressed great fear at the way his successor is handling the country’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry.

He appealed to the president to as a matter of urgency call him to order.

He accused the sector minister, Felix Owusu-Adjapong (MP) of acting so arbitrary and flouting all laid down procedures, and emphasised the need for the president to intervene.Policy for the industry regarded as the fastest-growing one in the world, is vague at the moment resulting in a lot of uncertainties, which have stalled its forward match.

Mr. Mahama told the Network Herald that a lot of mistakes have been made in the handling of the Ghana Telecom saga. He described as unfortunate, the present situation where the minister has virtually hijacked management control of Ghana Telecom and in the same breath, acting as minister, rolls out policies and attempts to determine what should happen within the company.

He expressed reservations at the formation of an Interim Management Committee (IMC) to take over the running of the company. Even though he is not against the setting up of the Committee, Mahama is not happy that the minister arbitrarily named the members of the IMC without consulting the minority partner - Telekom Malaysia. He maintained that the minister has no business changing the management of the company.

“It is the board that must meet and decide what new management must be put in place.” “I have no objections to an IMC but I think the right procedure should be adopted.” The minister should have in consultation with officials of Telekom Malaysia, called for a shareholders’ meeting with proper representation to agree on an IMC.

The Malaysians made an initial investment of $30 million in GT and together with Ghanaian investors hold a 30% stake in the company, which Mr. Mahama thinks should be respected even if the minority partners have offered to sell their shares. To him, as long as government has not bought the shares yet, they have a stake in the company and therefore have an interest in its management.

“You cannot go and set up a three-man IMC exclusive of the Malaysians without consulting them.

”Presently, directives have been given the Human Resource Department of GT to withdraw the secretaries and drivers of the Malaysians in a bid to force them out. As at the time of filing this report, the doors to the offices of the Malaysian managers had been bolted to prevent them from entering their offices. “I think this is over the board,” Mahama said.

Mr. Mahama also added that the shubby handling of the Malaysians could send a very negative signal to the investor community.According to Mahama, Ghana’s ICT policy has not been clearly outlined most especially, to the operators in the industry and even though the president and the minister have both hinted that there will be more competition, they have not been able to say the kind of competition that is expected.

“There is a sense of uncertainty about the direction in which the industry should move and so operators are adopting a wait-and-see attitude.”There was an attempt to fashion out an ICT policy but that has been stalled, because of a perceived disharmony and lack of co-ordination between a task force working under the Office of the President and the sector Ministry.There is a lot of confusion in the sector at the moment,” Mahama said, adding, “Nobody knows who owns the policy and who should be moving it forward.”

The former minister also had some suggestions;He told the paper that, for the industry to move forward, the government must as early as possible establish the parameters for further liberalization of the Communications market, determine whether it wants to engage a third operator to challenge the duopoly of WESTEL and GT and also make a definite pronouncement on what it wants to do with its one-third share in WESTEL as well as the penalty imposed on the company.

Mahama contended that with these issues and many others left hanging for almost two years, industry operators will always hesitate to invest in the industry in Ghana.