Multinational Companies Have No Basis To Dictate To The State - AFAG
The Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG) is not thrilled by the posturing of TELCOS when it bothers on revenue monitoring, transparency and accountability.
Fellow Ghanaians, AFAG holds the belief that, multinational companies (ie MTN, Vodafon,Tigo etc) have no basis to dictate to the state especially when it bothers on transparency and monitoring of revenue generation.
It's of interest to note that, only one TELCO have so far declared profit to warrant taxation. All other TELCOs over the years, have never declared profit to warrant taxation. Interestingly, they have not also liquidated. This magical phenomenon of deliberately evading taxes is worsened by what appears to be the collaboration of TELCOs and some individuals to illegally terminate calls through SIMboxing.
In all these circumstances a great deal of revenue is lost to the state. Who monitors the TELCOS to see if their revenue declared is the true position? Should we continue to loose over $100 million annually to SIM Boxing? indeed, some TELCOs are complaining of losing revenue through SIM Boxing.
According to MTN, it estimates loses of approximately GHC 34 million annually to SIMboxing. The related annual loss for Government of Ghana would be approximately GHC 16 million for international incoming traffic that should have been terminated on MTN’s network alone (ref: MTN website)
Fellow Countrymen, it is clear that;
(i) An ICH can monitor instant call records terminating on operator sites. This will prevent TELCOS from under declaring revenue. ICH thus, will ensure total disclosure of revenues automatically. AFAG is not surprised at attempts by TELCOS to frustrate the introduction and successful operations of an ICH.
(ii) On it's website, MTN Nigeria states, "MTN has signed an interconnect agreement with Nigeria's first interconnect exchange, Interconnect Clearinghouse Nigeria Limited. At the signing ceremony which took place at MTN's Corporate Headquarters in Lagos, Admiral Madueke the Chairman of ICN assured MTN that ICN will add value and quality to the MTN network through the state-of-the-art technology adopted by ICN and its high level of manpower and technical competence.”
In his response, MTN’s CEO, Ahmed Farouk promised that MTN would make full use of interconnect exchanges to fulfil its obligations to telecom operators in Nigeria who desire to make full use of the clearinghouse. He noted that it is cost effective and efficient to deal with a clearinghouse than to run after forty operators on reconciliation and debt collection at the end of every month. He said the licensing by NCC of interconnect exchanges would enable MTN focus on providing quality service to its subscribers"
(iii) ICH Increases Competition & Reduce Call tariff in the long term
Nigeria has over 40 TELCOS operating in its market. Call and data charges are thus way cheaper than it is in Ghana. It will be recalled in Ghana, individual TELCOS charge their own interconnection fees. Those with the larger market share charge higher interconnectivity barring more operators from entering the mobile telephony market. An ICH thus provide an even platform of fixed universal charges. This encourages more TELCOS to enter the Ghana market without fearing crowding out by already existing and stronger networks. The introduction of an ICH in Nigeria saw to an increase of network operators from 15 to over 40 currently. This has increased competition and decreased call cost in Nigeria. Ghana needs same. We need over 20 TELCOS in Ghana or else call and data cost will keep being expensive.
RESOLUTION
The Alliance for Accountable Governance (AFAG), in principle sees the economic benefit of the ICH as a revenue generation entity and as a means to check the oligopoly of the TELCOS.
Government must ensure extensive consultations and harmonisation with stakeholders to the mutual benefit of all actors.
There should be extensive consultation to the address the legitimate concerns of all actors in the sector. AFAG is of the view that, government would take this in good faith to ensure that, all bottlenecks are addressed.
Be it as it may, AFAG is gearing up for extensive advocacy on the ICH to ensure that the nation does not lose out.
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