General News of Monday, 4 June 2018

Source: mynewsgh.com

We are not protecting Kelni GvG – Ursula Owusu

Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful play videoMinister for Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful

Communications Minister Ursla Owusu-Ekuful has rubbished claims that government is protecting Kelni GvG.

According to her, assertions that the company is being protected because the Ministry of Communications has been responding to questions meant for the company cannot be true.

The Minister, who was responding to questions from the media at a press conference at the instance of the National Communications Authority(NCA) in which MyNewsGH.com Business Editor attended , noted that the company is busy delivering on its mandate and will not be distracted from that. ‘’ All the questions were directed at the Ministry of communications, all the allegations were made against the Ministry of communications and the Ministry Finance and for me who is behind Kelni is a distraction. They have been engaged to do a job, I would much rather they focus on doing that job and if there are any issues, questions have been asked about the procurement process, they didn’t engage in that process, we did and so I thought that rightfully so, we should answer those questions’’ she opined.

The Minister also downplayed suggestions by sections of the public that the deal with Kelni GvG is a bad one and one that has no value for money.

According to her, compared to the current arrangement, the new contract is the best Ghana could ever have, given the fact that the equipment being deployed to track and monitor government revenue on the common platform would revert to government ownership at end of the 5 year contract period.

She was also upbeat about the fact that the telecom companies would comply with the directive to get onto the common platform for data monitoring purposes by the deadline of June 11, 2018, which is just a week away.