Negotiations to privatise Ghana Telecom ends this month

Accra, June 24, GNA-Negotiations for the process to privatise the Ghana Telecommunication Company (GT) is to close by the end of June 2008, Dr. Benjamin Aggrey-Ntim, Minister of Communication announced on Tuesday in Accra.

He told Parliament while answering questions on the floor of the House that Government owned 100 percent shares in the Company, but the shares would be floated on the Ghana Stock Exchange when privatized. The Government of Ghana in 2006 took a decision to privatise the GT and Westel, a sister telecom company, within a two-year period through the sale of its shares in the two companies.

The understanding, according to the Minister, was to introduce competition and also to address issues of access to rural communities. It therefore became necessary to seek foreign investment to modernize publicly-owned telecommunication companies to enable them to compete in the presently liberalized telecommunications sector in the country. Dr. Aggrey-Ntim said the privatization of Westel was concluded in December 2007, but the offers received from some of the investors into GT had not been satisfactory and that had persuaded Government to invite further proposals from other investors into the GT.

He said Government, in the meantime through an agency called GIFTEL has intensified its activities through the erection of telecommunication masts and towers for use by all operators in previously underserved areas. The Ghana Communication Authority has also since 2006 divided the country into five zones for the purpose of granting two operating licenses for the development of Fixed Wireless Access services in the respective zones.