The Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu Ekuful has given telcos in the country 48 hours to fully cooperate with government’s Common Monitoring Platform (CMP) or face sanctions.
The platform, located on the premises of National Communications Authority (NCA) and managed mainly by Kelni GVG, is to monitor telecom traffic in real time for the purposes of government revenue assurance, fraud management, mobile money monitoring and traffic verification.
It was officially launched on October 22, 2018, by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and telcos have started sending communication traffic live, but some of the telcos have delayed in sending their mobile money traffic for real-time monitoring.
The Minister warning was therefore specifically with regards to the delay in sending mobile money traffic.
She insisted that mobile money is a communication service so far as it being done on the networks of the telcos and offered only to subscribers who sign up to it on the network.
Ursula Owusu Ekuful said if telcos continue to delay in sending traffic on mobile money activities to enable the NCA and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) to monitor those for the purposes of government tax revenue, the sanction prescribed by the Communication Service Tax Law, Act 864 will apply in the next 48 hours.
The Minister said the government never intended to use the CMP to infringe on the privacy of the customers of telcos as claimed by some civil society organizations, adding that the only intent has always been to verify traffic for the purposes of assuring government tax revenue.
She assured the president that his vision of Ghana beyond aid will be achieved and the telecom sector will play their role in achieving that target because the ministry will ensure that telcos paid their taxes to the government in full.
Ursula Owusu Ekuful lauded the NCA and GRA for chalking success in establishing the first ever common monitoring platform in the sub-region and urged them to manage it well so that it will serve the country well.
Efforts to reach the Telecoms Chamber to respond to why telcos have refused to send mobile money traffic proved futile.