After spiriting away huge monies
VODAFONE NOW SHARES BOOTY
…30-minute talk time costs 30 pesewas
By Livingstone Pay Charlie
The British telephony, Vodafone, which bought Ghana’s strategic national asset,
Ghana Telecom, under a dubious US$900million offer has finished milking the entity
for its own gains.
After selling GT’s lands for US$1billion, operating Ghana Telecom University in
dollars, selling all telecommunication masts and ploughing huge profits from the
Broadband service, company insiders tell Daily Post the British expatriates “have
made their money”.
Due to the railroading nature its deal was secured, Vodafone has decided in the name
of marketing promotion to charge GH¢0.30 as talk time for 30 minutes within its
network.
Business elements told this paper that this latest strategy cannot hold any sound
justification in business operations.
According to them, this is one of the ridiculous unprecedented charges all over the
world in telecommunications history.
“It has never happened before. How would you balance the operations budget and
accounts and the ever-increasing telecom materials,” an expert said.
From all indications, Vodafone has now become ‘Father Christmas’, an NGO whose
network could now be used by consumers virtually for free.
An angry management staffer of Vodafone said, “They only want to give Ghanaians
fun-fool respect. They are messing us up. All they want is their money”.
As a way of spiriting away huge money to their Cosmopolitan Europe, Vodafone as a
corporate out-sourc gives contracts to only its allied companies from UK. No
Ghanaian firm gets contract and there is no application of the procurement law. A UK
company, Eaton Telecommunications Ltd has bought all GT masts. Eaton now operates
telecommunication masts and rents them to Vodafone for a fee.
In its austerity packages to cut down operational costs for huge profits, Vodafone
has dismissed 2000 workers so far and are set to dismiss a further 1000 in June.
It has also refused to pay US$3million yearly for the operation of the Kuntunse
Satellite. Vodafone secured 70 percent shares in Ghana Telecom at US$900million
under the Kufuor administration. A ministerial committee which looked into the
controversial sale has uncovered startling revelations.
There is no document clearly spelling out how the price tag of $900million was
arrived at and a number of laws including the procurement law were breached.
Other entities, for instance, Telkom South Africa’s (US$1.65 billion) put in higher
bids but was not considered.
The current government says it is putting in place a committee “to re-engage with
Vodafone”.
with treachert & trickery...
GcNET GETS THE NOD
A decision by the President, Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills last Friday giving the nod
to GcNET to deploy the valuation module in the Ghana Customs Management Systems
(GCMS) from June 1st sent shock waves throughout Ghana’s revenue system, especially
among CEPS and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) officials.
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Information, “the deployment of
the module is to enable GCNet determine and report variations in the values that are
assigned to various goods imported or exported”
The statement also said the initiative is expected to help enhance the mobilization
of tax revenue by CEPS.
However, Daily Post’s investigations indicate that GcNET deceived the President
about the capabilities of the GCMS software because it cannot do valuation.
Investigations by this paper indicate that the GCMS can only store data. Obviously,
there is no way the President would have given the directive he gave if he was aware
of this fact.
Yet, in a letter to the Minister of Finance and copied to the Office of the
President, GcNET claimed that “… one of the modules within the Ghana Customs
Management System (GCMS) is a Valuation Module. Unfortunately this module has not
been utilized by CEPS because of the valuation service being provided by the DI
companies.
“GCNet has also not been mandated to block declarations when these are identified to
be discrepant. The rationale for this was that CEPS Supervisors, Compliance and
Examination Officers using GCMS would make such interventions and address any
discrepant declaration. Unfortunately, this has not lived up to the desired
expectation.
“…in regard to the fact that discrepancies that we have identified and often flagged
for correction have not been rectified, we kindly wish to propose to be permitted to
deploy the Valuation Module in GCMS.
“If this proposal were to be accepted, we would take steps to “clean” the existing
Transactional Price Database (TPD) in GCMS and review declared values against
certified transactional values in the system. We would also complement this with
externally verified TPD and properly use the GCMS Risk Management Module, which is
also scarcely applied by CEPS.
“For a start this valuation verification would be applied to “High Risk Goods” (ie.
Goods that attract a relatively high tariff and contribute significantly to revenue
collection, but tend to be under-valued). These goods include frozen foods (ie.
Poultry, beef and fish), clinker, cement, alcohol beverages and commodities like
rice and sugar.
“We wish to assure that in making this proposal, we do not intend to supplant the DI
companies, and would respect any decision taken by Government with regard to their
operations. What we seek to do is to provide that valuation assurance that would
ensure that the incidence of under-valued declarations is stopped.
“We also do not intend to charge any fee for the provision of this valuation
assurance; and trust that this proposal would be favourably considered.
In the meantime, to help address the revenue shortfalls, we have also resolved to
put out on a weekly basis, a number of transactions that do not conform to due
process, and which have to be reviewed. Whilst we used to do this regularly in the
past, we were disillusioned by the fact that there seemed to be no follow up
measures taken to redress such transactions that we flagged.
“We look forward to receiving shortly your feedback on the matter to enable us
kick-start the process. We would also be available to discuss the proposals and the
modalities that would be followed”.
Responding to GcNET’s claims, the GRA stated that it “…is unclear whether this
proposal is rooted in the GcNET contract or GcNET is out looking for a new contract
for Customs Valuation.
“The question as to the capacity of the GCMS to perform Customs Valuation was
raised, answered and determined at the meeting with the President at the Castle on
the 21st of May 2010. The conclusion was that it did not have the capacity to
perform Customs Valuation. This partly informed the decision of the President to
allow Customs to perform its Valuation function for three months using the new
software application.
“ Consequently, the proposal being made by GcNET is not feasible.
The following Issues are being raised:
· The proposal brings up the question of the scope of its role under its
contract with Government. The GcNET is not mandated to directly manage GCMS
operations. The contract would appear to limit the role to managing a platform for
the exchange of data/information between designated Government Agencies and
Stakeholders in the International Trade Community. That is to say that, the GcNET
system receives trade documents and passes them on to Customs through the GCMS for
declaration processing.
· It is noted that the GcNET has previously made the same proposal to the
Customs Administration in 2006. At that time, a selected group of Customs Valuation
officers were invited to evaluate the proposed module. The evaluation took three (3)
days. The officers concluded that the module could not be used for Customs Valuation
purposes as prescribed under the WTO Agreement on Customs Valuation (ACV) or the
provisions of the Revised Kyoto Convention.
· Software applications are made to suit specific concepts and purposes. At
the time that the GCMS Valuation Module was written, the ACV was not in existence
and therefore could not have been customized to serve the purpose of Customs
Valuation under ACV.
· In 2006, the evaluation came to a further conclusion that the GcNET
Valuation Module cannot help Customs to build a reliable Transaction Price Database
(TPD).
· In 2007, Customs embarked on a search for valuation module. The
Destination Inspection Companies (DICs) were invited to do a demonstration. The
modules presented did not receive Customs Management approval. GcNET was not invited
to the demonstration because their earlier presentation did not meet Customs
expectation.
· Customs Management continued a search for a viable valuation module. In
April 2007 Customs Management sent four (4) Valuation officers to India to study the
Indian Customs Valuation Software. It was recommended that an in-house software
customized to suit Ghana Customs purposes should be developed.
· In November 2007, Bankswitch Ghana Limited demonstrated its software to
Customs Management. Aspect of this software met Management expectations. A joint
team of Customs officers and software for Ghana Customs purposes. A project
implementation team was put together to implement the Valuation and Classification
project. The project has been on-going since December 2007. Customs officers,
Customs House Agents, carriers/ shipping lines have been trained for the project to
be fully rolled out.
Conclusion
With the investment made so far, it will be a waste of resource and time to abandon
the Valuation Module of choice for the Valuation Module as proposed by GcNET”
The response of the GRA is proof that GcNET’s proposal to the Finance Minister and
the claims made in it were lies aimed at deceiving the President so he would give
them the nod. It is also an indication that the fraud and thievery perpetrated by
the DICs, unscrupulous importers and clearing agents at the ports which has led to
the loss of trillions of cedis in revenue to the state since 2003 is set to
continue. This would explain why the DICs threw their weight behind GcNET and popped
Champaign after the nod was given to them.
“We are the implementers of revenue systems in Ghana. We have told government that
the GcNET’s system would not work. Yet, government has given them the nod. The
President should be prepared for the political ramifications of his directives. If
enough revenue is not collected, he must not blame us or CEPS. He must know who to
blame” an angry official of the GRA whose views the Daily Post sought said yesterday
Another official of the GRA slammed the reasons given for the nod to GcNET.
“They say they have given GcNET the nod because they are already in the system. What
has been their track record so far? Are we applauding their poor performance which
has cost Ghana over four hundred trillion cedis since 2003? Again, we are being told
that they are providing this service at no extra cost. Can you believe this? A
business entity providing software for free? Jesus Christ help us”.
President Mills, by ignoring the advice from the GRA had turned the authority into a
toothless bull-dog. So, who should be held responsible for any revenue shortfall
this year?
Stay tuned for more.
