A Deputy Minister for Communications, George Andah has disclosed that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has no capacity to properly monitor mobile money activities, hence the decision to bring in Kelni GVG to give government confidential data on mobile money transactions.
According to him, the quality of data is very important to forecast the revenue generated in the area.
His comments follow warnings raised by the President of Imani Africa, Franklin Cudjoe on the 89 million dollars contract awarded to Haitian company, KelniGVG.
Mr. Andah insisted that government cannot rely on data provided by the telcos and banks, hence the need for an independent monitor.
He stressed that “The quality of data is relevant for critical decision making.
“I’m telling you that the Bank of Ghana has absolutely no visibility on the mobile money activities that is taking place apart from what the banks and the mobile telcos are reporting.
“That is one of the reasons why we are doing this in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Communications,” he stated.
Mr. Andah argued that government cannot rely on private players to provide it with figures on taxes.
He observed that every data provided by the private stakeholders must be subjected to assessment to make sure the figures are a reflective of the situation
“We are looking at an independent source. It is in government interest to get an independent source of the data to know the true revenue. We are not going to rely on the banking partners and telcos to tell us that this is the amount of tax that they have collected on behalf of government,”.
He added that “We want to have an independent source of those data so that we can verify that indeed whatever is being reported is what shold be accrued to government”.
Meanwhile, Mr. Andah has promised to make public the cost incurred by government as it relies on the figures provided by the telcos.