Ursula Defends Kelni-GVG Deal

Joe Anokye

Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has mounted a strong campaign for the deal signed between the National Communications Authority (NCA) and Kelni-GVG for the monitoring of the country’s telecommunications industry.

At a press briefing last Friday, she took journalists on a tour of the Common Platform Monitoring Centre located on the premises of the NCA to assuage the fears of Ghanaians, especially IMANI and some Minority Members of Parliament.

Journalists were taken through the set up and how it is expected to work when fully operational. They were educated on how the four modules of the Common Platform Monitoring Centre works, with emphasis on the fraud management system which was the only module that has been activated and was working. The Centre also houses other core monitoring systems of the NCA, the Network Monitoring System and the Broadcast Monitoring System.

Present were her two deputies, Vincent Sowah Odotei and George Andah, the Director General of NCA, Joe Anokye, Commissioner General of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), Kofi Nti, and some management staff from the respective outfits.

Need for Revenue Assurance

Answering questions from the media, the Minister reiterated the need for the state to be able to verify whatever revenue figures telecommunication companies report.

She talked of an audit report conducted on the reported revenues for operators between the year 2008 and 2011 which revealed that operators had under-declared, resulting in a combined fine of GH¢ 41 million cedis against them.

“The NCA commissioned Revenue Assurance Audit in respect of payment of 1% on revenues and revenues from the International Incoming Traffic revenues in 2012. This covered the period 1st January, 2008 to 30th June, 2011. Total fines paid then were GH¢ 41,059,355.41”, she revealed.

The Minister said that further strengthened the position of government on the need to monitor the telecommunications companies.

Privacy and Data Protection

On the issue of privacy and data protection, Ursula, who is also a lawyer and the Member of Parliament for Ablekuma West, said the law indicated that the Common Platform does not have the capability of listening in on phone calls or the data of consumers.

“We are interested in the volumes and the money attached to the volumes; we don’t have any interest in who has called who or what who said to whom”, he noted.

On the question of why vendor company, Kelni-GVG, was not the one responding to the issues that has arisen out of the contract, her response was “all the questions so far were directed at the Ministry of Communications; all the allegations were made against the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Finance.”

She, therefore, insisted the Ministry was “rightfully” positioned to respond to all the begging questions, and not the company which virtually played no role in the processes that got them the contract as well as other procurement issues.

Concerned as he was, the Director General of the National Communications Authority, Joe Anokye, jumped into the fray, insisting that voice calls are received on two parallel routes, the voice and the management route and that the system has been configured to plug into the management route and there is no way the Common Platform can monitor any calls.

He added that the NCA has three certified Data Protection Practitioners, two of whom are a lawyer and a chartered accountant respectively and they have been attached to the Common Platform.

The Tour

A tour of the NCA premises revealed a series of monitoring screens and racks housing servers for the Common Platform. Also found on the premises were servers intended for set up on the premises of the mobile network operators. The anti-fraud system which does not require a direct plug-in into the network providers set up was found to be operational, with the rest awaiting the go-live with the operators to start work.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

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