Minister for Communications, Hon. Haruna Iddrissu has charged Globacom, operators of Glo mobile telecommunications to learn to respect the new guidelines and regulations set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the issuance of environmental permits.
He said government had approved these new guidelines to deepen the environmental regulatory framework of the country.
Speaking to The Lead in an interview in Accra last week, the Communications Minister rebutted allegations in industry and media circles that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government was frustrating glo, thus preventing them from rolling out their services in Ghana.
“On the contrary, government has done enough to support glo in their bid to launch. The responsibility now lies with the company to deploy their infrastructure in order to launch their operations here, Haruna intimated. He emphasized that “Sabotage does not exists at all.”
According to him, the president had tasked the communications ministry and the Environment, Science and Technology to ensure the successful launching of glo mobile, who are also the title sponsors of Ghana’s premier league.
The Communications Minister said the president was eager to see glo launch in Ghana because he wanted to ensure the deepening of competition in the telecoms market place and ensure that more jobs were created for Ghanaians.
“The communications ministries and the National Communications Authority (NCA) were charged with spectrum issues which have since been resolved around the end of 2009, he disclosed, adding that “we have freed the 800MHZ frequency to be used by glo.”
According to him, the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology was also to deal with environmental permit issues. These, Mr. Iddrissu said are also being handled on behalf of the ministry by the EPA.
He disclosed that the EPA had already approved 590 cell sites for glo out of 977 applications submitted by the company. He added that the EPA had also asked glo to re-apply for the 302 cell sites that were not approved of, due to environmental considerations.
Globacom which also operates in Nigeria and Benin threatened in May 2010 to pack out of Ghana citing certain supposed interests which they claimed were bent on sabotaging them.
The company enumerated challenges such as encroachment on their frequency allocated to it by the National Communications Authority(NCA), the repeated defacing of their billboards and the delay in securing approval for the swift deployment of its infrastructure, such as base stations,
It said officials of the company were concerned that while they had been working at a frenetic pace to formally roll out the network, some forces had been deliberately working around the clock to cripple its operation and prevent it from rolling out quickly, to the detriment of the Ghanaian society.
The NCA in a letter dated June 12th, 2008, awarded glo Mobile Ghana a mobile cellular license to operate mobile phone services in Ghana. This happened when all the available GSM frequency had been allocated for use.
Glo managed to get the then Government of former President Kuffour to re-allocate to them, GSM frequency previously allocated to Ghana’s National Security Agencies. It was agreed that the government would get National security to migrate to another frequency. The migration has since been completed at a considerable cost to the Ghanaian tax payer, and the frequency has been lying idle ever since.
Another area of concern for glo was the temporary ban on the erection of telecom masts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Investigations however revealed that glo was erecting some of its Mast without permit, flouting directives by industry and environmental regulatory authorities that must be respected by all service providers.
The government became aware of this illegal activity when a Mast belonging to glo collapsed at Ashale-Botwe, a suburb of Accra causing the death of two people. The NCA requested glo to produce the permit for the mast but the company could not produce the permit.
Glo also cited the ban on the erection of communication mast as one of its frustrations. The ban had since been lifted.
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