NDC & NPP Gang-Raped Ghana Telecom

A development economist, Dr. Nii Moi Thompson, has noted that the very nature of the evolution of the sale of Ghana Telecom suggests that the company was "gang-raped" at various stages by managements under NDC and NPP regimes.

In his view, crass, inefficient managerial skills coupled with greed rendered GT economically fruitless; hence those who perpetuated these inimical acts should be held responsible.

He said the raping of GT under the botched Telenor management is the most incontestable case of causing financial loss to State that should be pursued anytime.

"The pale economic nature of GT is not a recent phenomenon but the cumulative effect of years of run down amounting to gang- rape. We as a country must do everything to stop the bleeding of GT," he told an Accra civil society meeting earlier this week.

Dr. Thompson challenged those he called 'the silent partners" in Vodafone deal to come clean, since there are telltale signs that point at some powerful people around the presidency pushing the deal. He alleged that during President Kufuor's recent visit to the UK, he was pictured on TV having audience with Vodafone officials and wondered what the president promised them.

In the view of Dr. Nii Moi, greed is what is driving the government's haste to sell off GT. He said it defies imagination that the expanded GT with such valuable assets could be sold to a foreign company for a pittance $900 million). "It must be driven home to the Ghanaian public that the expanded GT is very different from the old GT which only had fixed lines and a network of few mobile telephony. The new and improved GT includes the fibre optics." In his view, the new growth frontier in the telecommunications industry is fibre optic, which Ghana cannot afford to let go.

According to Dr. Thompson, many of these multinationals who come to acquire state companies do so with the tacit support of their governments and this fits into their grand scheme of recolonization of the African continent.

"The agenda now is recolonizing Africa in a cost effective way and the focus now is buying into strategic assets such as communication, the extractive industry and financial institutions," he revealed.

The development economist contends that the proposed sale of 70% shares of GT assets should be viewed just merely beyond the issue of profits. "It is our built assets and should be guided by our national interests," he stressed.

Vodafone has however been fighting spiritedly to clear its name over whether or not it has experience in fixed telephone business.

Vodafone says contrary to claims by critics that it has no experience in fixed-line voice operations, it has wholly-owned fixed-line (voice and broadband) services in Germany, Italy, Spain, Egypt and New Zealand".

According to information doing the rounds Vodafone owns and manages fixed-line voice and data networks in Germany under the brand Arcor, in Italy and Spain under the brand name Tele2, in Egypt under the Vodafone brand and in New Zealand, iHug.

But for Egypt where Vodafone's share in the fixed line voice service is 54.1 per cent, it owns 100 per cent in all the other countries where it has fixed line voice services.

Since news of the sale of 70 per cent stake in GT to Vodafone at US$900 million went public, it has raised many questions, with one of the claims being that Vodafone operates only mobile telephony services and has no experience in fixed-line voice operations.

But one other critic, Dr. Peter Quartey, an economist and Deputy Director of University of Ghana Centre for Migration Studies, told the GNA that he was once resident in the UK and knew that Vodafone had no fixed-line services and that Vodafone services were also very expensive.

According to Vodafone's information, however, in addition to its fixed line services, it also has over 10 million fixed-broadband customers across 13 countries, served through both Vodafone-owned fibre networks and through wholesale agreements with other providers.

The facts sheet said Vodafone consumer fixed-broadband offered in markets through wholesale agreements included Vodafone UK, Greece, Portugal, Netherlands, Ireland, Czech Republic, Romania and Vodafone Malta.

"Vodafone has also managed the construction and roll-out of its own fibre networks in Germany - 50,000km of fibre cabling, with a further 4,000km planned in the next two to three years, Turkey: 2,500km of fibre cabling laid since September 2007.

"In India the company has 48,000km of fibre cabling, with 26,000km laid since Vodafone's acquisition of Hutchison Essar in May 2007. A further 35,000km is planned in the next two years," the facts sheet said.

Touching on the GT deal, the facts sheet stated that beyond the payment of US$900 millions to the government of Ghana, Vodafone would also invest an additional US$500 million into renewing GT's operations over the next five years.

It noted that Vodafone acknowledged the strong competition that GT faced from four foreign-owned telecom operators active in the Ghanaian market (MTN, TIGO, Kasapa, ZAIN and GLO), saying that Vodafone intended to develop GT as a world class company addressing its customers' total communications needs, including mobile, fixed, broadband and fibre.

The fact sheet said in recognition of the challenges facing GT, the US$500 million invested would be used to bring a suite of Vodafone products and services to GT and additional required investment would be made so as to regain market share.

"We will leverage Vodafone's global scale and buying power to bring latest technology to Ghana, complete and integrate the national fibre optic network - bringing high-speed broadband and fixed-line services to the people of Ghana and supporting governmental effort to develop ICT in schools," it said.

It said coverage and quality of the mobile network would also be expanded across the country, including widening the EDGE network across major urban areas in the short term and bringing 3G to Ghana within 2009.