By William Yaw
Owusu
Tuesday,
February 16, 2016
The Member of Parliament (MP)
for Manhyia South, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh aka Napo, says the licence issued
to Afriwave Telecom Ghana Limited to operate the controversial interconnect
clearing house (ICH) for telecom companies is illegal and cannot be used.
He does not understand why the
regulator - National Communications Authority (NCA) - should allow Afriwave to install
its machines at the telecom companies when the Ministry of Communications only
got cabinet’s approval to prepare a legislation governing the ICH policy for
onward approval by Parliament just last December.
He said currently there is no
law backing the award of the contract to Afriwave because Parliament was yet to
pass the ICH Bill into law.
Afriwave Licence
The introduction of the ICH
policy and the subsequent award of a contract to Afriwave, which is said to be
wholly Ghanaian-owned, have set tongues wagging since policy analysis think-tank,
IMANI Ghana, raised a red flag that the bidding process was rigged to favour
the supposed winner - Afriwave.
According to Franklin Cudjoe,
president of IMANI Ghana, the NCA evaluation panel that looked into the bids of
five contesting companies did everything, including padding of figures, to ensure
that Afriwave was awarded the multi-million dollar contract.
The companies are Afriwave,
Subah Infosolutions, Prodigy International Limited, TCMS-GVG Consortium Limited
and Channel IT Ghana Limited.
At the end of the bidding
process, Afriwave was handed the golden spoon and IMANI suspects serious foul
play.
NCA’s Anger
The NCA has hit back at IMANI’s
claim and reiterated that “the processes leading up to the award of the
Interconnect Clearinghouse Licence were transparent and in accordance with the
laws of Ghana. Any suggestion otherwise is false, malicious and same ought to
be disregarded.”
The regulator has since published
the report of the Application Evaluation Panel on the Interconnect
Clearinghouse Services Licence and other relevant documents for the public to
judge.
“The NCA has taken this step in
the interest of transparency. This is the final report bearing the signatures
of all members of the panel that was presented to the Board of the NCA on 29th
January, 2015. The contents of the report are a true and accurate reflection of
the exact findings and recommendations of the AEP,” it said in a statement
yesterday.
Napo’s Fire
According to the Manhyia South
MP, the NDC government breached the law by failing to secure legal backing before
issuing the licence to Afriwave to operate an ICH.
He said a law exists to govern
the policy for interconnect clearing house and if the policy is changed, the
law ought to be amended to reflect the changes.
“As soon as they got Cabinet
approval for policy change, they proceeded to award a contract and 11 months
after they have awarded a contract they are going back to the same Cabinet to
seek power to come and do the change,” he argued on Joy FM yesterday.
He queried, “So what was the
rush to award the contract when you didn’t have legislation?”
He also said there appeared to
be a ‘turf war’ between the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Communications in
respect of the ICH in the area of revenue mobilisation.
He drew attention to a Finance Minister
letter dated December 2015, addressed to the Communications Minister, Edward
Omane Boamah, in which the Finance Minister expressed misgivings about the
perceived intrusion.
NCA Clarification
The NCA, following an allegation
made by another MP, Kwaku Kwarteng, that the government was paying both Subah
and Afriwave for doing the same work, clarified that Afriwave had not started
operations officially and therefore did not deserve any payment.
The Obuasi West MP had said ‘criminal’
double payments were being made to two firms - Subah Infosolutions and Afriwave
Telecom Ghana Ltd - for monitoring incoming international telephone traffic of
telecom firms.
The Director-General of the NCA,
William Tevie, denied the allegation and said, “Afriwave will start operations
in May after the contract for Subah Infosolutions has come to an end
officially.
“Afriwave has since installed
and integrated its systems with that of all mobile network operators (MNOs) to
ensure a continuous and smooth transition period when the contract of Subah Infosolutions
ends in May 2016.”
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