Communications Ministry signs MoU on Mobile Money Data

The Ministry of Communications has reached an agreement with the Minister of Finance and Bank of Ghana to enable transactional information to be made available to private contractor, Kelni GVG.

Hon. Ursula Owusu Ekuful stated there has been an agreement to some terms leading to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Finance Ministry, National Communications Authority (NCA), Bank of Ghana and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).

She stated the BoG acknowledges, GRA has the mandate to receive all revenue data no matter what form it takes.

Mobile Money Data is a source of a feud between the Ministry demanding it and the Central Bank which is keeping it. Last year, the Communications Ministry wanted disclosure of customer balances, transaction amounts, date and time of the transactions.

It wanted its private contractor, Kelni GVG to be given the records to verify revenue generated by telcos.

However, the Bank of Ghana explained that handing over such data would breach the Guidelines of Electronic Money Issuers and the Data Protection Act. It, therefore, wrote to the various telcos to disregard the earlier letter from the Communications Ministry requesting them to hand over the data.

The Communications Ministry also stood by its demand, keen on implementing the Communication Service (Amendment) Act passed in 2013.

The Ministry, in May 2018, demanded that telcos allow Kelni GVG to plug into their systems to monitor call traffic as a way of ensuring the taxes they declare are accurate.

In the midst of the raging debate, two Ghanaians; Ms Sara Asafu-Adjaye and Mr. Maximus Ametorgoh, filed a suit at the Human Rights Division of the High Court, praying the court to prevent the Ministry of Communications and other defendants from allowing a third party, Kelni GVG, to have access to their private data.

The applicants sought a declaration that the plans of the Minister of Communications, the NCA and the GRA to implement the common platform (CP) by connecting real time to the entire switch of the physical network nodes of Airtel Ghana, MTN Ghana, Tigo Ghana and Vodafone Ghana under the US$179-million Kelni GVG contract constitutes an infringement on the applicants’ fundamental human right to privacy.