Tema to Get More Telephone Lines

Ghana Telecom (GT) is to expand its existing telephone lines in the port and industrial city of Tema from 24,000 to 50,000 under a new five-year business plan covering 2002 to 2006.

Mr Charles Cobb, Tema Commercial Manager of GT, who was speaking in an interview with the GNA, said the plan involved installing new telephone exchanges to serve the periphery of Tema, where new residential areas and businesses were springing up.

New telephone switch or exchange would be provided for Lashibi, Communities 13 to 20, Communities 21, 22 and Michel Camp to Afienya.

A new switch would also be put up to serve the Enclave of the Tema Export Processing Zone (EPZ) area at Kpone.

Mr Cobb said GT was also increasing transmission efficiency through new fibre cables being laid from Tema to Accra along the Tema beach road to the Cantonments exchange.

He said with the current rate of expansion, Tema needed resources as an entire region to reduce its dependence on Accra and ensure fast delivery of services to the public.

On the current rate of default in the payment of telephone bills in Tema, he said over 90 per cent of consumption was paid by customers because GT was using disconnection as a very effective tool for debt collection.

Mr Cobb said disconnection was not the best option since GT stood to lose some revenue from potential callers to the disconnected lines.

However, the system of putting defaulting customers on one way to receive calls before they were later disconnected had rather been comfortable to them.

Initially, the practice was to call customers, who owe GT to remind them to settle their telephone bills but some of these customers rather took offence and rained insults on GT officials on the phone.