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.

Ghana Halts Issuing of New Licences

Ghana’s telecoms regulator the National Communications Authority (NCA) has made public that going forward, it will not issue any new operating licences to new players, the Business Guide reports.

NCA director general Bernard Forson made the announcement to parliament last week, during a Public Accounts Committee scrutiny into the regulator’s audited report for 2005. Explaining the decision, Forson said that the country’s limited spectrum resources had already been allocated to the country’s six incumbent mobile operators, and therefore there was no room for market entrants.

Although Glo Mobile has yet to launch its operation, the other licensed cellcos - MTN, Vodafone, Zain, Tigo and Kasapa – are said to be ‘competing fervently for customers’. Despite the apparent lockdown, the director general did say that there was room for new companies wishing to offer data-only services which, Forson noted, would help to drive up the proliferation of the internet in Ghana.

Kasapa's MD Resigns

The managing director of Ghanaian mobile operator Kasapa Telecom, Bob Palitz, is stepping down from the role after nine years in office. In an interview with local press agency Joy Online, Mr Palitz said he believed he had contributed his quota to the company and that it is time to move on. The resignation comes approximately 18 months after Kasapa was acquired by Dubai-based Expresso Telecoms.

‘I’m getting on…and looking for new challenges and I know that the incredible team of Ghanaian managers and staff, some of whom were already there, some of whom joined us after I came [to] Kasapa, know the meaning of operating with integrity and transparently and professionally and I have every confidence they would continue to do that regardless of what happens after I have gone,’ Palitz said.

The announcement was made less than a week after Palitz’s firm reported success in the long-running Kludjeson court appeal. On 4 February Kasapa issued a press release noting that the Court of Appeal had reversed, by a unanimous decision, the 25 April 2007 ruling of the Accra Fast Track High Court, in the case of Kludjeson International Limited versus Robert N. Palitz, Lung Hien Ching (Kasapa’s former CFO), Trustee Services Limited (Kasapa’s former company secretary) and the Attorney General. The court awarded costs to each of the first three defendants.

Kasapa Wins Appeal In Kludjeson Case

Ghanaian CDMA operator Kasapa Telecom yesterday issued a press release noting that the Court of Appeal has reversed, by a unanimous decision, the 25 April 2007 ruling of the Accra Fast Track High Court, in the case of Kludjeson International Limited versus Robert N. Palitz (Kasapa’s managing director), Lung Hien Ching (Kasapa’s former CFO), Trustee Services Limited (Kasapa’s former company secretary) and the Attorney General.

In its ruling, the Court of Appeal upheld each of the eleven grounds of appeal, and, significantly, adjudged that Mr Palitz, Mr Lung, and Trustee Services had all been properly appointed to their respective positions, and that all actions taken, including the change of company name from ‘Celltel’ to ‘Kasapa’ and the acceptance of a shareholder loan, were properly done and completely valid. The court awarded costs to each of the first three defendants.

Back in May 2007 Kasapa Telecom strenuously refuted the Accra Fast Track High Court ruling that the appointment of its managing director and chief financial officer, was done inappropriately and that the name of the company should be changed back to its original name, Celltel.

At the time it published a press release titled ‘The Facts of the Matter’, in which it said it was vital that it responded to the ‘deliberate and malicious spread of misinformation about the judgement of the High Court on 25 April 2007 in the case of Kludjeson International Limited (KIL) vs Robert Palitz and 3 others’.

Ghana Telecoms Earn $5 Per User

Statistics on the earnings of telecom operators in the country indicate that operators made average revenue per user (ARPU) of five dollars a month in the first half of this year.

The ARPU comprised of both what a subscriber spends for calls and data communication on his or her network, plus what the operators make on the average from incoming calls to the subscriber as per the interconnection agreement.

The first quarter report for 2009 on telecom operators at the National Communications Authority (NCA) obtained by the Ghana News Agency showed that market leader MTN made an average of US$8.00 a month per customer, Zain, made US$3.00, Tigo made US$5.3 while Kasapa made US$4.7.

As at March 2009, MTN recorded 54 per cent of the telecom market share (6.8 million subscribers), Tigo came second with 23 per cent (2.9 million subscribers), Vodafone, 13 per cent (about 1.65 million subscribers), Zain held seven per cent, (890,000 subscribers), and Kasapa recorded three per cent (almost 400,000 subscribers).

The report showed that currently an estimated 55 per cent of Ghanaians owned personal mobile phone numbers. This is up from 22 per cent in December 2006, 33 per cent in 2007 and 50 per cent in 2008. The figure is expected to reach 85 per cent in 2013.

It said the impact of mobile telecom on the economy was similar to the other enabling infrastructure such as roads, ports, airports and railways, adding that recent analysis by Deloitte showed that 10 per cent mobile penetration led to a 1.2 per cent increase in annual GDP.

Deloitte noted that the enabling infrastructure stimulated trade, created wealth and enhanced social welfare but mobile communication in particular "takes banking to the unbanked, reaches rural areas with modern communications, encourages entrepreneurship and facilitates social contact among families and friends".

"It also increases productivity and revolutionalises the way business is done and provides continuing employment and income generation for large numbers of people," it said.

MTN, for instance, recently announced that it had so far provided 120,000 jobs, which generated income to support some 500,000 people outside of its core staff in Ghana.

Mr. Brett Goschen, Chief Executive of MTN, said that mobile communication would continue to be the primary means for majority of the population to access voice, data, and internet service, projecting that subscribers would be demanding more of technologies that met their needs in making a choice of network.

He said, for instance, even though Ghana was the first country to launch internet in West Africa in 1993, there were still less than 800,000 internet users in the country, placing Ghana 28th out of 56 countries in Africa in terms of internet penetration.

Mr. Goschen said the challenge for mobile telecom operators now was to focus more on services and technologies that provided customers with an all-in-one affordable voice, data and internet access, preferably, on the voice over internet portfolio (VOIP).

Glo Mobile Blames Environment Body for Delay in Ghana Roll-out

Ghana's newest mobile network operator, Glo Mobile has complained that it is suffering problems in rolling out its network due to delays in securing permission from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to install its towers.

Glo Mobile is owned by Nigeria's Globalcom and was awarded a GSM operator license last June.

Mr Idowu Olumodeji, Head of Technical-Rollout at Glo, told the Ghana News Agency that the company had had to push back deadlines several times because the EPA had not issued permits for masts. He noted that to date Glo Mobile had submitted over 500 applications for permits to mount masts and other infrastructure in most of the regional capitals, but EPA was yet to issue a single permit.

Mr Olumodeji, who sounded frustrated, said Glo had asked EPA not to wait for all the applications to be complete but to issue permits for those which were complete but the EPA had not been co-operative on that either.

Mr Olumodeji said Glo had millions of dollars worth of equipment sitting at its warehouse waiting to be deployed - as soon as the EPA issues the permits.

For its part, the EPA has only just completed a draft document on the rules for installing base station towers in the country. The document, seen by the GNA calls for more use of co-location on towers to curb their spread - and will ask the telecoms regulator to make co-location mandatory where viable.

“The telecom operators are quick to blame the permit agencies like EPA for the poor quality service. Meanwhile they have not been able to take a single action on co-location since they started discussions on it years now,” said Mr Ebenezer K. Appiah-Sampong, Director of Environmental Assessment and Auditor of the EPA.

The country already has five operators, and according to figures from the Mobile World database, the country had 11.3 million customers at the end of last year. That figure equates to a population penetration level of just 48%.

The five operators (and market share) are: MTN (57%), Tigo (25.7%), Ghana Telecom (14.4%), Kasapa Telecom (2.8%) & Westel that was acquired by Zain (2.4%)