Mobitel Demands $8m

The mobile phone company, MOBITEL has asked the National Communications Authority (NCA) to pay it $8 million as compensation or the difficulties it encountered following the attempt to re-organise Ghana's GSM frequencies.

Many industry insiders however see Mobitel's demand as being highly unreasonable in the light of the fact that the company has been unable to pay taxes since its inception.

Mobitel has claimed that it has never made profit and therefore is not in a position to pay tax.

This is however strange because Mobitel has enjoyed the free use of its frequency, a valuable national asset in this information age.

Only recently, Nigeria sold a frequency to a Mobile phone company for $800 million.

Mobitel set up base in Ghana in May 1992 with a promise of investing $50 million in five years.

After nine years of operation, Mobitel is yet to pump in the colossal investment.

It has applied to be allowed to continue its operations for another 10 years. It is indeed significant that the boss of Mobitel, the suspected Israeli secret service operative, Morry Sivan was one of the first co-operate executives to call on President Kufuor after his victory in the Presidential elections.

What did Morry discuss with Kufuor? Did he get any assurances? Our searchlight on Mobitel is not about to be dimmed.