Protests Over Mobile Services InGhana

Thousands of people took to the streets of Ghana's capital city of Accra last week to protest at the alleged poor quality of mobile phone networks in the country. As part of the protest, the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA) lead a call for mobile phone users to switch off their phones on Thursday morning as part of the protests.

The demonstrators, mostly students, danced and sang as they passed through the main streets of the capital city with placards, some of which read "we are tired of your poor services", "stop tricky promotions" and "MTN, Tigo, Kasapa, Vodafone and Zain, the value is the same."

The protest ended at the premises of the Ministry of Communications, where the head of the CPA, Nana Prempeh Aduhene presented a petition to the deputy communications minister, Dr Nartey Siaw Sapore. He in turn assured the protesters that the government would look into the petition and take necessary actions.

Prempeh Aduhene told the Xinhua news agency that the response they got from the public during the demonstration was an indication that Ghanaians were indeed fed up with the poor services of the telecom companies.

Local media estimated that the six-hour switch-off protest would lose the mobile networks around US$6 million in revenues.