Minister for Communications, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has disclosed that telecom companies— Expresso and Glo, may lose their licenses if they fail to meet a 30 day ultimatum given by the ministry to answer questions on their poor operations.
According to her, the telcos have consistently operated below standards sets by the National Communications Authority (NCA).
Speaking to Umaru Sanda Amadu on the Point Blank section of Citi Eyewitness News yesterday[2,21,2018], Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful hinted that she is convinced the NCA will soon revoke the license of Expresso.
“For Expresso, I think the 30 days will end by next week. The letters have gone out. I have just seen a response that they have sent which doesn’t quite address the issues, so I have no doubt that the NCA will proceed to revoke that license and clean out that space. If that happens, those frequencies will be available for either interested Ghanaians, or other entrants to also come into the market,” she said.
She stated that the ministry is embarking on an exercise to sanitize the telecommunications industry to protect consumers and also rake in the needed revenue for government for national development.
She maintained that, the regulator — the NCA -, will not allow any telcos to break the rules and ignore the regulations governing the industry.
By this, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful stated that Expresso and Glo are required to present tangible explanations why the NCA should not revoke their licenses.
“We are moving against telcos who are also flouting the license conditions and we have actually issued notices of intention to revoke the licenses of Expresso and Glo if within 30 days, they do not live up to their obligations because they are in breach of almost all the regulatory and license obligations as at the end of January,” she warned.
Touching on the operations of Glo in Ghana, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful expressed surprise why the telco is doing well in Nigeria but performing poorly in Ghana.
She stated that the ministry has on several occasions contacted the telco to improve its services or risk losing its license, but to no avail.
“It is a valuable national resource and no one should be allowed to just sit on it without using it for the purpose for which it is intended,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful announced that government will soon auction the remaining 4G spectrum for telcos in June this year.
Source: citibusinessnews.com
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