MTN Ghana chronicles its journey with book launch on telecommunications economics

Telecommunications giant, MTN Ghana, has launched a 10-chapter book titled: “Telecommunications Conversations: A History of Telecommunication Economics and MTN in Ghana”.

The 300-page book chronicles the history of telecommunications from the Gold Coast to Ghana and especially the economics around its operations and in particular, the last 20 years of MTN in Ghana.

Speaking at a ceremony to outdoor the book, Mr Selorm Adadevoh, the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, said the book captured the thoughts, memories and efforts of people that have interacted closely with the MTN brand.

Mr Adadevoh said, “The book reinforces our vision and growth strategy as a company”.

Over the last 20 years, he said the company had created 500,000 sustainable jobs in the country.

Dr Ishmael Yamson, the Board Chairman of MTN Ghana, said if 10 big companies like MTN Ghana were to be operating in the country, the government would not go out to borrow.

According to him, MTN Ghana alone had led to the transformation of all sectors of the Ghanaian economy.

Mr Ebenezer Asante, MTN’s Vice President of Southern and East Africa and Ghana (SEAGHA), who birthed the idea of the telecoms company publishing the book as part of its 20th anniversary in 2016, said, he was inspired by the company’s can-do spirit.

The book authored by Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a development specialist and a member of the International Advisory Board of the African Studies Centre for Oxford University, looks at the history of telecommunications from the Gold Coast to present-day Ghana and provides readers with insight on how telecommunication can improve their lives.

It also catalogs the pre-independence of Ghana with focus on the economic history of the country- the era of the Economic Recovery Programme and the Structural Adjustment Programme in the early 1980s and the privatisation of state enterprises, among others.

The chapters focused on: Architecture of pre-digital super-highway, an Economic Runs through the Glaciers, and MTN in Ghana, Settling among the Believers, Mobile Financial Services, Banking, Business-Finance, and Knowledge Economy, Rural Economy and Economic Growth, Sustainable Development Goals, Philanthropy and Social Responsibility and a Leadership for Growth.

It was published by Ayebia Clarke Publishing Company in Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom and the ‘PagesettersPublishers’ in Singapore.