Internet cuts: NDC MP accuses Ursula Owusu-Ekuful of plagiarising address to parliament

Member of Parliament for Tamale Central, Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed on Monday, March 18, 2024, accused the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, of plagiarism when she addressed the legislature on the recent internet outage across the country.

According to the opposition MP, there was a clear indication that the minister’s statement was a verbatim copy of a similar statement made by Nigeria’s Ministry of Communication.

“Mr. Speaker, this House is a House of records and facts, when the minister was delivering the statement, I pulled a similar statement from the Nigeria Commission of Communication and it seemed to be word for word,” he stated.

“If it is true, then that is low... it’s terrible and it appears that way and that is why I want to make this submission to this House. And I expect you, Mr Speaker, to let them check if this is true, this must not be tolerated,” the MP added while describing the alleged conduct as disrespectful to the House.

In her address to parliament on Wednesday, the minister announced that plans are far advanced for the government to roll out programmes to license additional satellite internet service providers to deal with the disruption to internet services in the country.

She added that it will take a minimum of five weeks for full internet access to be restored as a result of the disruption attributed to seismic activities.

GA/SARA