Ministry of Communication to release $89m KelniGVG contract today

The Ministry of Communication has said it will make available all the relevant documents concerning the $89 million Common Monitoring Platform contract with KelniGVG, to the Attorney General’s Department by close of work today, Monday, 9 July 2018.

The ministry was ordered to release the documents by an Accra High Court (Human Rights Division) presided over by Justice Anthony Yeboah, following an application by two private Ghanaian citizens: John Ato Bonful and Nana Adom Kanyi, as well a pressure group, ‘The Citizens of Ghana Movement’, who feared the implementation of the contract could breach their right to privacy, hence their prayer to the court for an injunction.

The deal, which is meant for the design, development and implementation of a common platform for monitoring mobile phone traffic and corresponding revenue, has come under a lot of scrutiny, especially from policy think tank, Imani Africa.

Imani Africa wants the contract cancelled because it believes it is “needless” and a rip-off.

However, Communication Specialist at the Ministry, Sandra Frimpong, told ClassFMonline.com that the privacy of Ghanaians will not be compromised by the KelniGVG deal.

She said: “Common Monitoring Platform is not a project which is aimed at compromising the privacy of consumers and to this, we reassure you that technical specifications have been provided to provide a further layer of protection and security to address the privacy concerns of the Mobile Network Operators.

“A filtering server and mirroring installations have been included to ensure that only the signaling information needed for the purposes of traffic monitoring will be received by the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA). No other information – voice, SMS, video or data will be received by KelniGVG servers.”

“Ghanaians should be assured that, the issues regarding content of customer’s voice and data are no longer valid,” Ms Frimpong added.