Payphones not functioning but Telecom blames users

Over 450 payphones out of the 1,500 installed nationwide are out of order but Ghana Telecom says it is due to vandalism and fraudulent acts by users.

A Ghana News Agency investigations in parts of Accra revealed that some phones were unable to register numbers punched, calls cut off abruptly and new phone cards registering ''void'' when slotted into the machine.

"It is very frustrating when your call goes through and then cuts. This means you have to keep trying and this wastes time especially when the call is urgent", says Mr Tony Akussah, Records Supervisor of National Archives.

Mr Akussah was having a hard time making a call at a payphone near the Oreily Secondary School at Adabraka when the GNA caught up with him.

A payphone at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, near the Iran Clinic, functions intermittently, while the one at Mr Rees Drinking Spot at Kokomlemle was out of order.

Mr George Mensah, a tradesman at the West Industrial Area, described the payphone at the Avenor Mosque as a white elephant. "The phone has not been functioning for three months."

"A lot of people who come here are always disappointed, the buttons simply do not function."

One of the two payphones at Swanlake Junction at North Kaneshie has its handset severed while the one at the Mobil Filling Station in the same area was out of order.

At Mataheko, the only one at the main road to Dansoman was out of order. At the Wesely Grammar Secondary School Junction in Dansoman the only payphone has been out of order for more than five months.

The payphone at the filling station on the main Russia- Dansoman road was non-functional.

Mr Samuel Kwesi Ainsoh, General Manager Payphone Division of Ghana elecom, told the GNA that most of the faults were due to vandalism, fraudulent acts by some users to cheat and the lack of spare parts to replace outmoded ones.

He said new customer friendly phones were being installed. "There would be drastic changes in the payphone business by the end of the year."

Mr Ainsoh said some customers fraudulently try to key in some instructions to enable them to make free calls.

"The system has been programmed in such a way that it automatically stops functioning for a period."

He said at certain times payphones in specific areas experience total blackout over a period due to the activities of this unscrupulous people.

"The service provider has no alternative but to delete that area as counter-measure and also to safeguard the system," he said.