Business News of Tuesday, 22 September 2020

Source: GNA

Positive competition essential to satisfy consumer needs - Patricia Obo-Nai

Patricia Obo-Nai, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana Patricia Obo-Nai, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana

Patricia Obo-Nai, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana, says the telecom company is more concerned with having a positive competition in a provided equal space that will collectively help to satisfy consumer needs.

“We at Vodafone Ghana don’t have any problem, so long as the actions of the regulator is helping the consumer, stimulating innovation and promoting creativity in the industry.”

The CEO said this in an interview with the Bloomberg Surveillance’s live interview, which sought to find out how some changes in the telecom sector including; the outbreak of COVID-19, had affected the company’s operations and services to consumers.

Mrs Obo-Nai, responding to a question on how the outbreak of COVID-19 in Ghana had affected the company’s operations and the demand for its services, said the company had rather witnessed an increase in demand for network infrastructure and connectivity.

“We’ve seen data traffic go up by about 50 per cent and so we’ve had to expand capacity to manage it as much as possible,” she added.

She said Vodafone as part of measures to satisfy consumer needs, embarked on a journey to drive digital adoption and help to establish opportunities for the educational and health sectors and small and medium-scale enterprises.

It also increased more digital wireless connectivity, enabled cashless payments, and delivered financial services through its mobile money platform.

Mrs Obo-Nai said Vodafone Ghana had seen a 40 percent increase in the number of active customers on its mobile money platform since the outbreak of COVID-19, and believed it was a good transformation as that was safer, secured, and the best way to pay bills and salaries.

She said government partnered the telecom companies and the Electricity Company of Ghana to provide access to fibre in communities and schools, saying that was a good effort to ensure that all customers enjoyed same services.

The CEO said bringing Vodafone under the Vodacom umbrella, had not limited the comprehensive operations of the company, however, it had enabled the two entities to share best practices, and create synergies through capitalizing systems to promote better services.