The ban on the erection of telecommunications masts will be lifted by the
end of the week, the Communications Minister has said.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu said guidelines have been drawn for the issuance of
permits by the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology for the
siting of masts and that the way had been paved for the ban to be lifted.

Speaking at the World Telecommunications and Information Society Day &
Consumer Forum, organised by the National Communications Authority (NCA),
Mr. Iddrisu said the building of masts was necessary to “address some of
the issues of Quality of Service and bring sanity into the indiscriminate
siting of these masts.”

He said improving accessibility and service was a priority to the
government.

“By the Declaration of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS),
it is our common desire and commitment to build a people-centred, inclusive
and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create,
access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals,
communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their
sustainable development and improving their quality of life,” he stated.

The minister said, “The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications
(GIFEC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, is equally
directed with immediate effect to intensify the supply of computers to
schools, to ensure that 80% of schools are supplied by June 2012. The
supply to deprived schools should be addressed in the first instance. It is
noted that 38 Training Colleges are to be connected this year.

“To enable the effective implementation of the Government's education
policy, the Ministry will engage the Ministry of Finance and Members of
Parliament to consider offering special tariffs for schools, and tax breaks
for operators providing connectivity to schools.”

He noted that, “It is in this regard that our infrastructure deployment
plan has been designed to make it universal, accessible, equitable and
affordable. The emphasis on broadband is primarily to bring high-speed
internet to all parts of the country and provide a platform upon which
solutions and strategies will be delivered to expand and improve education,
improve governance, health delivery, facilitate commerce, finance and
banking, support agriculture and environment, etc.

“We are encouraged that our present telephone penetration level as at
January this year was nearly sixty-seven percent (67%). In respect of the
Millennium Development Goals, and the World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) established minimum penetration level of 25% by the year
2015, we can say in Ghana that we have made tremendous strides.


Giant strides have been made



Participants at the forum

“We have also seen a major leap in Internet subscription from a 2008 figure
of 45,000 to 2,500,000 in 2009, representing 95% increase over the 2007
level of 23,000 (about half of the figure is accounted for by mobile
internet being delivered by telecom companies.”

Touching on the objections raised by the Alliance for Accountable
Governance (AFAG), on the government’s initiative to implement a
Consolidated International Gateway Project in Ghana relating to the
management of International Telephone traffic termination in the country,
the Communications Minister said, “I will advise that the [AFAG] properly
acquaints itself with aspects of Government policy because every action of
Government is done with utmost transparency and involvement of the
stakeholders.”

He added that, “In this particular instance, their fears are aptly attended
to in the Amendment to the Electronic Communications Act, in Section 25A,
which protects the privacy of the individual. I only hope that indeed, the
intentions of AFAG are quite noble.”

The forum lined up Chief Executives of the six telecom operators (Tigo,
MTN, Glo, Kasapa, Zain, and Vodafone) in the country, who responded to a
wide range of issues raised by basically dissatisfied consumers.

The president of the Consumer Protection Agency, Kofi Capito, took the
telecom service providers on for overpricing of their products,
"unsolicited, fraudulent text messages" and unexplained rules regarding
games and promotions.

He was particularly unhappy that telecom giant Vodafone, was giving
Ghanaians services that are at variance in quality compared with what the
company provides for its UK subscribers.

Responding to the charges, a representative of Vodafone at the forum, said
it took the company 15 years to provide the high quality of service to its
consumers in the UK and that Vodafone was committed to raising its service
quality in Ghana to that of UK in three years.

The Director-General of the National Communication Authority cautioned
against the spread of unsubstantiated allegations about the effects of
telecom masts.

He said although the sensibilities of the citizenry must be respected, it
was important to observe that some of the concerns were backed by
scientific findings.