Must Ghana Sell Ghana Telecom, (GT)?

The opposition party, NDC is making a lot of noise over the NPP government’s proposal to sell Ghana Telecom (GT) to Vodafone, a British multi-national company. It must be recalled that the same NDC government sold many of Nkrumah’s assets to Ghana and handed over “the head” of GT to the Malasians, on a silver platter that have virtually run GT to the ground.

While these authors are strong believers and admirers of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and honour him, not only for his great vision and dreams and acquisition for Ghana, but for the infrastructures and assets he created for the nation of Ghana, we cannot, but now advocate for private ownership when negligence and mismanagement of national assets are on the rise. We pray or wish that subsequent governments/regimes, to wit, the Rawling’s NDC and Kufour’s NPP administration could, at least, maintain the national assets, if they could not add to them. It is now very difficult to argue in favour of state ownership when both our politicians, public servants and the ordinary Ghanaian have no regard for state property.

Some People would like to argue blindly that there is no point to favour the sale of GT to a foreign company like Vodafone. The sad news is although Ghanaians are very intelligent and hard working people it appears they cannot sacrifice for their country and therefore do not take (or have hitherto not taken) proper care of government Companies. They always want to take every service from the government for free. Meanwhile; they would not put up their best for it. They would not supervise it properly; they would not manage it by the book. Why? Because it is for the government and they would get their wages whether they work or not; whether there is a profit or loss.

Virtually all State organizations and institutions in Ghana run at a loss. A case in point is Ghana Airways, Tema Textiles, Valco, Volta River Authority and many more. We all remember what happened to the Ghana Airways recently. Most of the officials and families were using the Planes without paying for any tickets. Can you believe that? It would therefore suffice to argue that privatization (especially to serious-minded Ghanaian investors and nationals) would be the way forward. Yet again, instead of handing over to serious-minded Ghanaian investors, the politicians (usually would) turn around and mortgage the state enterprises to themselves at a great discount, often using expatriates as front men. A case in point is Ghanacem.

Notwithstanding, if Ghanaians are not working for the government, they try to put up their best to maintain their positions and maximise their profits. In this conundrum what can we say is best for Ghana now; -to sell or not to sell GT?

GT services are not good especially when there is rainfall. They cannot compete with any other company. They don't or cannot even extend their service. One has to pay a "bribe" before he or she would be provided with a telephone line. Not only is this shameful but absolutely rubbish. We know of a lady in the Diaspora who wanted to connect with a telephone to her mother at Aboaso, only 12 miles from Kumasi, a major city in Ghana. For over 4 years now GT maintains that their line in the District is full and cannot connect any other additional line. Up till now the line has not been provided. Numerous efforts and persuasion have been made by this party to get a phone line to no avail. The “go –come” politics as usual continues and GT office has still not been able to deliver for these folks. Do you think GT is business minded?

Perhaps, it is not presumptuous to say that GT services would never change so long as the mentality and attitude of the people and even government remain the same. Let the Government pomp billions of dollars into GT you will not find any meaningful positive change so long as the state continues to manage it. It is hard to understand why the opposition (NDC) is so much against the sale of GT to Vodafone when they had supervised the sale of a dozen more state organizations without public announcement or debate. Why would the opposition now make a fuss or protest after GT has been advertised for about two years now? Why would the opposition now make a fuss when the Ghana government, (NPP) is now planning to connect all the schools (JSS and SSS) with IT services with GT as the sole telephone provider? How can the country achieve this milestone when they have not even been able to provide a telephone line to a house in Aboaso, -a town just 12 Km from Kumasi, the second biggest City in the country? At this juncture it may be appropriate to suggest that NDC and CJA are just wasting their time. They do not want the county's economy to grow.

Giving the above our stand is that, Vodafone should take over from GT for efficiency and competition. But, there should be an agreement that the company should not be moved from Ghana to elsewhere like India or the Philippines as it is happening in USA and Britain. The fear of the people is that many Telecoms in USA and UK have most of their call centres in the Philippines or India and therefore most of the workers of these giant industries like Vodafone are outside the boarders of the state. To safeguard the interest of the nation, therefore, the terms of the contract with Vodafone must ensure that about 90% of the employees come from Ghana.