Six Ghana Telecom workers suspended for doing their job!

Serious questions are being raised over the rationale behind the interdiction of six employees of Ghana Telecom (GT) from some branches of the company in Accra, according to the Weekend Statesman.

The six - three from Cantonments Exchange, one from Dansoman Exchange and two from the headquarters - have been suspended for their alleged role over its "One Go" post-paid mobile phone cards in which some customers defrauded the company to the tune of over ?90m.

According to The Statesman, its investigations revealed that the customers, some of them foreigners, were connected upon completion of all the necessary formalities, including the initial down payments.

But those were the last payments they were to make. Thereafter they accumulated as much as ?90m over a period of time, then transferred the phones to unsuspecting individuals and absconded.

But instead of the company looking for the fraudsters, it rather swooped on the six employees who, company sources told the paper, only carried out legitimate instructions.

Until recently Ghana Telecom had no records of their clients with which they could contact them in the event of default. Owing to these administrative lapses, the interdiction of the six people has created considerable uneasiness among Ghana Telecom staff.

Many of those who spoke to The Statesman blamed poor management for the problems facing the company and argued that there has been low quality management since the privatisation.

Since the divestiture of the 30 per cent to G-Communication, a consortium of telecom operators made up of Telecom Malaysia, Network Computer System and Alhaji Sulemana, NDC activist, the company has not made the expected substantial improvement.