Communication Minister, Ursula Owusu, says the Kelni Global Voice Group (GVG) deal is aimed at preventing Telecommunication Communications (Telcos) from evading tax payment.
Kelni GVG, a Haitian originated company, was awarded a contract by the government for design, development and implementation of a common platform for traffic monitoring, revenue assurance, and mobile money monitoring and fraud management, a service already being rendered by Afriwave and Subah Info Solution.
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IMANI African has however questioned the rationale behind the new contract with Kelni GVG, describing it as wasteful and aimed at milking the public purse.
According to the policy think tank group, reasons espoused by government officials to back the deal lack financial sense except that it was premised on political thinking.
Reacting to this on Asempa FM’s flagship program “Ekosii Sen”, Ursula Owusu said the Telcos by law are expected to produce their Call Detail Records (CDR) so they pay their taxes according to the records respectively.
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She further recalled that some years back two giant Telco companies were “caught” escaping tax charges by providing “fake” CDRs to the government.
According to Ursula, the “best” method and system to monitor Telcos to pay their correct tax charges is the Kelni GVG deal, which will also aid the government to monitor, independently, the records provided by the Telco companies to boost transparency in business.
“We have evidence that they don’t bring the correct records out. They need to pay 1% to NCA. NCA conducted an audit and it showed they under declared one per cent sometime back. We have reason to believe they are not declaring everything. The deal is to make transparency an important factor…” she said on Asempa FM on Monday.