CSIR advocates policy to protect mobile phone consumers

Accra, Jan. 30, GNA- Professor Emmanuel Owusu-Bennoah, Director-General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), on Wednesday advocated the formulation of a policy and creation of a regulatory environment that would protect the interest of mobile phone consumers.

He said "It is equally important that we develop a good policy that will ensure fair play, promote competition, protect interest of consumers and in fact ensure holistic development of the industry." These were contained in an address read on behalf of Prof. Owusu-Bennoah at a meeting on the development of the mobile telephone industry in Ghana under the theme: "Harnessing the potential of mobile telephones for Micro and Small business development," in Accra on Wednesday.

He said Ghana deserved to be counted among countries whose mobile phone industry was viable, innovative and sensitive to the needs of subscribers to facilitate socio-economic development. Prof. Owusu-Bennoah said there was the need for support from research institutions to undertake critical assessment of the industry to help identify best practice in other countries that could be applied in the development of the telephony industry in Ghana. He said the scientific community had not enjoyed much co-operation from some of the operatives of the country's Information Communication Technology Sector especially the Internet service providers. Prof. Owusu-Bennoah said it was unfortunate that no one at present had adequate information about the level of Internet penetration in the country. He attributed the situation to the close door policy of most of the internet service providers who refused to share industry data and information.

Prof. Owusu-Bennoah noted that harnessing the potential of mobile telephones would require building bridges between all players in the industry.

He expressed CSIR's preparedness to engage both private and public sector in addressing the myriad development problems facing the country and called for a stronger partnership between stakeholders to move the country forward through the development, application and utilization of science and technology.

He advised Internet service providers to open up to scientific scrutiny to enable policy researchers to know how the Internet industry was performing to enable them recommend measures to improve the performance of the service providers .

Dr. Godfred Frempong, Head of Industry and Service Division of Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI) of CSIR said CSIR had conducted a research which aimed at identifying the extent of adoption of mobile telephone by Micro and Small Business (MSB`s). He said the main use of mobile telephones by MSB`s, gender dimension in the usage of mobile telephones in Business, examining the contributions CSIR had made to facilitate MSB`s and the regulatory and policy implication of mobile telephone usage by small business were also studied.

Dr. Frempong explained that the focus on the micro and small enterprises was based on the fact that they played important roles in wealth creation and poverty reduction in the less urban and rural economies of the country.

Mr. John Ocloo a representative of the Consumer Association of Ghana, called on the telephone industry to improve on product safety service quality, consumer education and information. He said it would be prudent on behalf of the network providers to make clear how mobile phone users consume their call credit because consumers currently do not know how their credit got finished.