Telenor Ok, But Minister Must Leave NCA Alone

An Information Technology (IT) expert, Dr. Amos Anyimadu has called for the immediate resignation of the Minister of Communications and Technology, Mr. Felix Owusu-Adjapong as Board Chairman of the National Communications Authority (NCA), the telecommunications regulatory body in the country.

Speaking to ADM Accra on Wednesday, Dr. Anyimadu said the Minister's current position at the NCA may affect the independence of the NCA hence the need for him to resign.

"He should resign. It is doing a great damage. I have read his (Minister's) explanation very closely but you have to look at your attention span. Now in a small country like Ghana nobody is going to have the time to go into all the details about whether you have the staff. The big question they are going to ask is whether the regulatory organ is independent or not. If you have a Minister in the chair then it's going to be difficult to say that it's independent."

The Minister of Communications and Technology, Mr. Felix Owusu-Adjapong has on a number of occasions justified his position as Chairman of the Board of the NCA. He said it is not unusual for a minister to take such a position because it is prevailing in other countries. He has cited Morocco as one of such countries.

On Telenor, Ghana Telecom's new investment partner, Dr. Anyimadu said the company is capable of transforming the telecom sector in the country because it has the requisite equipment to perform."They have significant investments in South East Asia. As far as I know this is about their first investment in Africa. Generally compared to the company (Telecom Malaysia) they are replacing, all things being equal I would say Telenor is much more sophisticated."

Although Dr. Anyimadu hailed Telenor, he was critical of the bidding process because he felt the one-month time frame was too short for other bidders to catch up. He said Telenor has the technical-know-how while Telecom Malaysia, "to be very blunt I do not think they really had the technical capacity to support GT."