Minister of Communications justifies the controversial GVG deals


The Member of Parliament for Ablekuma West Constituency in Greater Accra and Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has denied vehemently, any wrongdoing in the much talks about agreement between The National Communication Authority (NCA) and Global Voice Group (GVG), for the implementation of a Common Platform for Telecommunications Traffic Monitoring, Revenue Assurance, Mobile Money Monitoring and Fraud Management in Ghana.

Addressing the matter on The Floor of Parliament, The Minister noted that, “there has been absolutely no corruption or underhand dealings in this transaction", contrary to the information in the public domain, to the effect, due process was not followed in signing the agreement.

According to her, she can never be party to any such conduct as, she values her reputation and the reputation of the government which serves the good people of Ghana. 

I stand here as a Minister of the Akufo-Addo administration to assure this august house that I believe this is the best deal we could have got, she reiterated.

In her conclusion statement, Madam Ursula, said, "I wish to reassure all companies doing business in the communications sector that we are not against big business. 

We however, take a dim view of those who will flout our laws with impunity and expect all our corporate citizens to pay their due just as they would in their countries of origin". Below are some of the excerpts from her full statement:

STATEMENT TO PARLIAMENT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMMON PLATFORM FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS TRAFFIC MONITORING, REVENUE ASSURANCE, MOBILE MONEY MONITORING AND FRAUD MANAGEMENT - 31/05/2018
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the invitation extended to me to appear on   the floor of this August House to explain the implementation of a common platform for telecommunications traffic monitoring, revenue assurance, mobile money monitoring and fraud management. This issue has, rather unfortunately generated some apprehension which in my view, is totally unnecessary. 

We had initially informed your Committee of Communications of our preparedness to fully brief them and address any issues on this matter. 

I am appealing to the house to grant me the indulgence to make this full statement. Mr. Speaker, the Electronic Communications Amendment Act, 2009, Act 786, provides that 19 cents be the minimum amount to be charged by network operators per minute for International calls terminated in Ghana. 

Section (5) of the Act specifically imposes a duty on the National Communications Authority to establish a mechanism and institute measures to monitor compliance with this floor price per minute of International calls. 

To give effect to the $0.19 stipulation in the Act, the National Communications Authority contracted the services of the Global Voice Group (GVG), a leading telecommunications revenue assurance service provider, in 2009, to monitor the Inbound International Traffic to ensure Government of Ghana (GoG) received the required tax revenues. 

GVG was also required to manage fraud on the network to reduce the incidence of traffic bypass (SIM Box) since that also had an adverse impact on Government revenues.  

There was strident opposition to this move by the GOG, spearheaded by the mobile network operators which resulted in several law suits. They cited security of their network installations and privacy concerns primarily, but their main motivation may have been their unwillingness for GOG to have full visibility of their actual traffic volumes to determine the real taxes payable on the revenues earned from them.

Following sustained pressure, GVG was compelled to terminate their operations in Ghana a year before their contract expired and the contract was taken over by Subah Infosolutions Limited in 2012. The GRA had also hitherto engaged Subah to perform domestic traffic monitoring though it had no previous experience in telecoms revenue assurance. 

Mr. Speaker, after Subah took over the GVG Contract, they continued to monitor both Local and Inbound International Traffic for the National Communications Authority and Ghana Revenue Authority. 

This was however not on real time basis, as data was only collected from the servers of the Mobile Network Operators. The network operators persisted in denying these companies the right to connect to their physical network nodes to collect the raw data for analysis. 

The question we need to ask is why? 
Why this continued fear of the Regulator getting access to the raw data from the same sources the MNOs derive their data from for independent verification and analysis of the actual revenues due government?
 Why this insistence that state agencies should only get the mediated CDRS? 
Why this persistent desire to deny the Authorities access to real time data? 
In response to this concerted effort to frustrate government, the Communications Service Tax Act, 2008 (Act 754) was passed to compel the MNOs to grant access to their physical network nodes for the collection of real time electronic data.

Mr. Speaker, the Communication Service Tax (Amendment) Act, 2013, Act 864, which amended Section 14 of Act 754, passed by this last Parliament in which today’s Minority was the Majority, specifically enjoins the Minister of Finance to collaborate with the Minister responsible for Communications to:
a) “Establish a monitoring mechanism to verify the actual revenue that accrue to vendors for the purpose of computing taxes due the Government under this Act;

b) Be given Physical access to the physical network nodes of the vendors' network at an equivalent point in the network where the network providers' billing systems are connected, and 
c) Ensure that a common platform is used for the purpose of monitoring revenues under the Act as well as revenues accruing from levies under the Electronic Communications Act 2009, (Act 775).”


Despite the unambiguous terms of the CST Act, all the MNOs apart from Glo, still defy the law and have refused to grant access to their physical network nodes for real-time data collection. 

They claimed they preferred the monitoring platform to be owned and managed by the regulator, the National Communications Authority. It is only in Ghana that the network operators feel they can dictate how the Regulator regulates them! 

Mr. Speaker, in 2016, a further complication was introduced. The Electronic Communications Act was amended (Act 910) to make interconnection through an Interconnect Clearinghouse (ICH) mandatory. 

The Electronic Communications (Interconnect) Clearinghouse Service Regulation, 2016 specifically barred any ICH from providing revenue assurance services. 

Afriwave Ghana Limited was granted a licence to provide Interconnect Clearinghouse Services in August 2016 but Mr. Speaker, the scope of the Afriwave License included Monitoring of International Incoming Traffic and Anti-Fraud Monitoring (SIM-BOX Tracking). 

This was not a core function of the ICH. The introduction of Afriwave meant that there would have been a duplication of efforts as Subah continued to provide Inbound International Traffic Monitoring Services to the NCA. 

To avoid this clear duplication, the NCA wrote on a number of occasions to inform Subah Infosolutions that their services were no longer required by the NCA. Subah however ignored those letters. 

It is pertinent to note that while the NCA was not a party to the Subah contract which was between Subah and the GRA, it was bound to use their services even where it did not need or require it and was obliged to pay for it. 

There is copious correspondence of NCA displeasure with this arrangement which was ignored. Mr. Speaker, without independent comparison of the Call Data Records (CDRs) with data actually gathered from the monitoring of the traffic in real-time, it is impossible to ensure the accuracy of declared traffic volumes. 

If traffic is not monitored in real-time, the only source of capturing traffic volumes will be from the MNO’s servers (CDRs) and that could be manipulated as there is no guarantee that they haven’t been tampered with, in the absence of the control mechanism of electronic real-time data capturing. 

Up until now, there has not been any real-time capturing of traffic volumes either by GVG, Subah or Afriwave Ghana Limited. 

Mr. Speaker, since traffic was never monitored in real-time, these companies collected the data from the same Servers as the NCA verification team and so inevitably, the monthly traffic data collated by the NCA from the network operators for free was substantially the same as the data presented by Subah and Afriwave for which the latter companies were paid approximately $2.6 million per month. Mr. Speaker, we were in effect paying for no work done.

This was the situation the NPP government inherited. It clearly could not continue. Mr. Speaker, a Stakeholders’ meeting was held on 8th March 2017 at the Holiday Inn Hotel, Accra chaired by Hon. Yaw Osafo Maafo, the Senior Minister to assess the situation and propose solutions. It was attended by the Ministers for Finance and Communications and their Deputies, Hon. Kwarteng and Hon. Andah, teams from the NCA and GRA led by the Director General and Commissioner General respectively, the CEO of the Telecoms Chamber and all their members, specifically the CEOs of MTN, Vodafone, Airtel, Tigo, and representatives of Glo and Kasapa, Afriwave and Subah.

Frank open presentations were made by all present. At the session, it became clear that neither Subah nor Afriwave was collecting real time data from any operator. It was unanimously agreed that the provisions of Act 864 would be implemented to the letter. 

The NCA would be the technical body to acquire and implement a Common Platform, working with the GRA under the direction of the Ministers for Finance and Communications for a successful implementation. 

It was envisaged that the entire process would conclude with the Common Platform being established by the end of 2017. Subsequently, the Ministry of Communications, in consultation with the Ministry of Finance, issued written policy directives to the NCA to proceed accordingly.

In accordance with this directive, a vendor selection process took place after NCA personnel conducted site visits to other African Countries implementing this before approval for restricted tendering was granted by the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) to commence this process. 

A key criterion for selection was the ability to monitor mobile money transactions, a value-added service provided by mobile network operators. The procurement process was followed strictly.


Story by Edzorna Francis Mensah

GBCONLINE
---DECRYPTED---