Kelni GVG Deal: Board members not resigning – NCA

The National Communications Authority (NCA) has denied claims of imminent resignations of some members of its Board following the controversy surrounding the Kelni GVG contract with the Communications Ministry.

President of IMANI Africa claimed on Morning Starr Tuesday on the back of the resignation of Susan-Barbara Adjorkor Boye Kumapley as a member of the NCA Board over unknown reasons that more are willing to walk out of the job.

But in a statement, the Board of Directors of the Authority rejected the claims as “false” and should be “disregarded.”

Government has signed an $89 million contract with Kelni GVG to deal with revenue losses and simbox fraud involving telcos.

IMANI has maintained the contract is fraudulent and must be canceled. They argue the company does not have the track record to undertake the job that has been given it.

Below is the full statement

The attention of the National Communications Authority (NCA) has been drawn to some comments from the media mentioning the Board of Directors over issues relating to the Common Platform and wishes to comment as follows:

The general public and interested parties are referred to the Communications Service Tax (Amendment) Act, 2013, Act 864 which states that the Minister for Finance in collaboration with the Minister responsible for Communications shall establish a common platform as a monitoring mechanism to verify the actual revenue that accrue to service providers for the purpose of computing taxes due to Government under Act 864 and revenues accruing from levies under the Electronic Communications Act 2008 (Act 775) as amended.

Pursuant to the law, the Common Platform contract was executed by the two (2) ministries. Therefore, the Board of Directors of the NCA does not have the authority to approve or reject such a contract.

It should be noted, however, that the NCA and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) per the respective enabling enactments, i.e. Act 775 as amended, in the case of the NCA and Act 864 in the case of the GRA, are the implementing agencies.

We wish to state that Mrs. Susan Adjorkor Kumapley, a former member of the Board, resigned on 12th February, 2018. No reasons were assigned in her resignation letter.

The claim that some members of the Board have threatened to resign is false and should be disregarded. The Board wishes to make the point that solutions offered by the Common Platform brings additional visibility to the communications environment and would provide benefits such as:

Real time monitoring of all traffic and revenue generated from mobile and fixed network operators. Real time information on the volumes and values of transaction of Mobile Money. Fraud Management (SIM BOX Tracking and Geo-location). Issued by the Board of Directors, National Communications Authority