Environmental Protection Agency gives Glo permits to mount masts

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued Glo Mobile, a mobile telephone provider, permits to mount their towers and start operations.

Mr Ebenezer Ampah-Sampong, Director of Environmental Assessment and Auditor of the EPA told the GNA that EPA issued “a lot” of permits to Glo recently.

“I am told that Glo has started mounting masts in parts of the country but I do not know exactly where,” he said.

GNA investigations revealed that following the permission by the EPA, Glo had made payments to some land owners across the country and started moving their equipment to allotted sites to erect their towers.

The National Communications Authority, in a letter dated June 12, 2008, licensed Glo Mobile of Nigeria as the sixth GSM mobile operator in Ghana.

But Glo needed more than just a license to start operations; they needed permits from the EPA, Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Radiation Protection Board (RPB), Town and Country Planning Department, the District, Municipal and Metropolitan assemblies.

The GNA had reported that Glo did obtain permits from all the permit agencies except one, the EPA, where hundreds of Glo’s applications got locked up for lack of required ingredients.

The EPA explained that at the time most of Glo’s applications lacked some essential requirements, particularly written consent from the residents of the communities where the towers were to be cited.

Mr Ampah-Sampong said the EPA had a responsibility to protect the environment and the citizens, particular in view of the myriad of complaints it received from the public about telecom masts.

While the EPA was waiting for Glo to complete its applications, Mr Joshua Peprah, Director of Regulatory and Administration at the NCA, announced at a public forum that Glo would start operations in June 2009.

Sources at Glo confirmed to the GNA that they now had permits from the EPA, but the exact time for the commencement of operations would be announced in due course.

Even though Glo has not started operations in Ghana, it has continued to contribute to the development of football, as sponsors of the Glo Premier League.

Glo was the first telecom operator to lay a submarine cable with capacity to serve the entire continent of Africa and beyond.

Source: GNA