Bawumia lied over mobile money interoperability cost - Former BoG governor

The former governor of the Central Bank, Dr Abdul Nashiru Issahaku has reacted to claims by the ruling government that, the previous NDC government was to commit an amount of GHC 4.6 billion of public funds into the project.

In a statement, the former governor described the claims as false and asked the public to disregard it.

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia last week launched the mobile money first mobile money payments interoperability system in Ghana. Interoperability is the ability for customers to undertake money transfers between two accounts at different mobile money companies or to transfer money between mobile money accounts and bank accounts.

In his speech, the second gentleman of the land said the current administration is injecting a lesser amount as compared to ythe projected figure by the NDC. But reacting to the claims, the former governor said: ‘’ My attention has been drawn to the above claim which was attributed to the Vice President in his speech at an official event last week.

I wish to categorically state that the claim that the Bank of Ghana (BOG), under the previous NDC regime was to commit an amount of GHC 4.6 billion of public funds into the proposed switch to interconnect mobile money transactions is totally false and should be disregarded.’’

According to him, ‘’ SIBTON SWITCH was selected through due process to execute the contract using a self-financing mechanism to raise GHC4.6 billion on their own to build a robust interface intended to ensure efficiency and safety, among other benefits.

Neither government nor BoG was going to pay the purported GHC4.6 billion. The amount was actually the estimated projection for the cashflow of investment to interconnect electronic payments and transfers over a fixed period. 3. For emphasis, BoG did not engage SIBTON SWITCH to provide only an interoperable platform costing the said amount.

The SIBTON SWITCH solution was a lot broader in scope than the simple interoperability among TELCOs that was launched by the Vice President. 4. For example, under the SIBTON SWITCH framework, both TELCOs and all banks would be interoperable right from start, and in addition, the Bank of Ghana would be able to monitor the flows directly from its offices and would thus be able to have a strong control over the network.’’

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