Minister tells telecoms operators to be truthful in their transactions
The Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu on Friday cautioned telecommunication operators in the country to desist from the act of under declaring the volumes of international calls on their networks with the aim of making more profits for themselves.
The Minister, who was addressing participants at a seminar organized by the Private News paper Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG) in Accra, said it has come to the notice of the authorities that some international calls received on some local networks bore local mobile telephone numbers, which was strictly against the law.
He said there was therefore clear evidence that the international gateway of Ghana has become questionable due to the misconduct of some operators and this had led to huge losses in government revenue.
Mr Iddrisu said government was putting in place an International Gateway Monitoring System to check the situation and called upon all players in the industry to collaborate with government to gather enough revenue to provide the necessary infrastructure for the expansion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services in the country.
The Minister commended PRINPAG on its 20th anniversary celebrations and said the theme for the seminar,“The Telecommunication Industry in Perspective: History, Overview and Contemporary Challenges of the Media in Ghana”, bring to bear the importance of the media collaboration in promoting the ICT services.
He said considering the importance of ICT and more importantly considering the role of mobile phone telecommunication usage and services in the contemporary world, there was the need to increase investment in order to maximize its benefits for national development.
Mr Iddrisu enumerated the countless successes of the mobile telecommunication industry in Ghana over the years, saying government was committed to supporting every move by operators to expand their services to all areas of the country in order to bridge the ICT gaps which exist in various deprived areas of the country.
He indicated that to ensure the continuous growth and improvement and ensure quality customer protection, a number of policy initiatives which include the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards registration and the Mobile Number Portability (MNP)service were being implemented.
Mr Iddrisu said the various policy interventions were to mitigate crime and prevent anonymous calls and further help delete illegal SIM boxes which were robbing the country of revenue.
He said Ghana can currently boast of 80 per cent mobile phone penetration and about 25,000 subscribers have successfully ported in one month of the introduction of the MNP in the country.
The Minister said government would always safeguard the free expression and when necessary review any law that may hinder free speech and to this regard would require the media to be fair, objective and truthful and in partnership with government for promoting national cohesion and sustainable development.
Government was also perusing a national standard programme to be used in the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting which was expected to be fully operational by the year 2015 to improve picture and audio quality of both radio and television among other things.
“Ghana’s preparation will therefore ensure that the benefits of migrating from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting, which includes services such as higher video and audio quality, greater spectrum efficiency, and more programme channels on one frequency are enjoyed nation-wide”.
He called on the media as partners to maximize the use of ICT services for socio-economic development.
Ms Gina Ama Blay, PRINPAG President, noted that with increasing public preference for new services via the internet, it was obvious that publishers would need to diversify their services in order to stay in active business and this would require additional investment to provide such services.
Source: GNA