Mr Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has said Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and other government agencies continued to charge high fees from telecommunication operators.

He said the assemblies charged arbitrary levies and fees on the installation infrastructure supposed to improve network service.

Mr Sakyi-Addo said this when some journalists paid a familiarization tour to the Chamber as part of a four-day training workshop on telecommunication reporting in Accra on Friday.

The workshop organised by Media Foundation for West Africa with support from MTN was to equip the journalists with skills and in-depth knowledge on the activities and operations of the telecommunication industry.

Mr Sakyi-Addo said some of these challenges distracted telecommunication operators from extending their network and services to other parts of the country for development.

He noted that MTN had so far invested $1.2 billion, Tigo had invested over $1.5 billion, while Airtel had invested about $700 million, but was yet to break even, and tough Vodafone bought Ghana Telecom for $900 million it had since invested another $500 million.

Mr Sakyi-Addo commended the Department of Urban Roads and Ghana Highways Authority for their collaborative efforts in improving operations of the telecommunications industry.

He said that the telecommunication industry had created about 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs for the citizenry.

Mr Paarock Van Percy, Director-General of National Communication Authority, said the market share of the various telecommunication operators were MTN 57.55 per cent, Vodafone (Mobile)20.14 per cent, Tigo 17.45 per cent, Airtel 12.65 per cent, Vodafone (fixed lines)1.29 per cent and Expresso 0.85 per cent.

He said there were on-going operational issues in the sector which included the Review of Interconnect Regime, International Gateway Monitoring and Verification Project and the Automated Radio Spectrum Monitoring Guidelines for Deployment of Masts.

Mr Van Percy said as part of the authority’s regulatory enforcement mandate, it encouraged competition, resolved regulatory disputes between communications services providers, enforced consumer protection law and encouraged compliance.**