None of the telecommunications companies in Ghana, according to a Deputy Minister of Communications, George Andah, revolted against government’s decision to award telecommunications revenue monitoring contract to Haitian firm, Kelni GVG.
He made the remark on The Big Issue to rebut claims by President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, that some of the telcos are against the $89 million deal.
[contextly_sidebar id=”axC1KwzvFpAPolbkMxwFVYWySitdAD9Q”]“You can call the CEO of the telecoms chamber and you can call every CEO of the telcos. There are no issues. There is absolutely no resistance from any telco. There are certain concerns about security and privacy and at the meeting on Thursday; we gave them every assurance that there is no issue about security and privacy of citizens or security and privacy of subscribers going to be compromised because we are working with the law,” George Andah insisted.
Government contracted Kelni GVG to design, develop and implement a common platform for traffic monitoring, revenue assurance and mobile money monitoring in Ghana.
But Franklin Cudjoe and his team at IMANI Africa have waged war against the contract saying it is not value for money and shady hence must be abrogated.
They had also petitioned the Vice President to that effect but government has insisted that the deal is in the interest of Ghana since they have so far saved over $1 million since GVG was brought on board.
$89m telecom deal puts Ghanaians’ data at risk- Franklin Cudjoe
Franklin Cudjoe had rubbished the government’clarification on the $89 million contract.
There has been a back and forth between IMANI Africa and the Communications Ministry over the deal which the former believes mirrors the State’s controversial agreements with Subah Infosolutions and Afriwave Telcom Ltd in 2010 and 2016 respectively.
In justifying calls for the abrogation of the deal with Kelni GVG, Mr Cudjoe said the company, though registered in 1995, only got its website registered in 2017, adding that no experience had been listed in undertaking the tasks they had been awarded millions for.
Mr. Cudjoe further argued that the deal will only put the data of Ghanaians at risk, saying “Ghanaians will have their data threatened if they allow this GVG company to play with their phone calls, chats, everything. Mind you, this is a company with a website that is so vague it is phoney, with very strange characters behind it since all it has, for a security company of its pedigree, are stock photos.”
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin
