Some Ghanaian journalists are expressing their strongdispleasure after President John Kufuor's government re-echoed its intention ofselling telecommunications giant Ghana Telecom. This comes after the governmentheld a news conference Tuesday to tell Ghanaians about selling the company at acost of $900 million to Vodafone a British based Telecommunication Company. Thegovernment said the sale was necessary in order to recapitalize Ghana Telecomto make it more viable and locally competitive.
Itadds that it needs money to inject into the economy after it experienced shockover increasing oil and food prices. But the journalist sharply differed withthe government and described the sale as "selling out Ghana's most treasuredand strategic asset for peanuts". Aggrey Ntim is Ghana's communicationminister. He tells reporter Peter Clottey from the capital, Accra that the saleis the best thing for Ghanaians.
"First,we need to re-capitalize Ghana Telecom and make it possible for the company torevamp its operations so that they can compete with the other companies in thiscountry. The second thing is that for a long time this company has been losingresources because it has been put in a position where indeed it could not bringtechnology. It could not innovate. And because of that, it has gone down, andthere was need to raise its level of operation. Thirdly, because all the otheroperators have international partners, they need less to invest in theiroperations because whatever they do is done at the global level as compared toGhana Telecom, where everything they do is localized, and therefore their costbecomes prohibitive," Aggrey Ntim noted.
Hesaid the government looked into various choices before deciding on the sale ofGhana Telecom.
"Wehave looked at several options and indeed this exercise did not startyesterday. It was two years ago that government took a policy decision toprivatize public companies in which it has interest I am now referring toWestel and Ghana Telecom, and since that time we have been looking at differentoptions. Indeed there was a time when Ghana Telecom actually undertook somebonds for funding to try and see whether it would help. Well, that did nothelp. From the lessons that we have learned from both at the time of theMalaysians as well as Telenol, we are now moving into this new agreement, whichtakes care of all deficiencies of all the problems in order to come up with asolution," he said.
AggreyNtim said government's decision to sell Ghana Telecom is the best decision everto be made by President Kufuor's administration.
"Iam convinced and that is why we are offloading the shares of Ghana Telecom. Anddon't forget, when this government came in, they actually announced a policy toprivatize and make the private sector a partner in the engine of growth. It isalso in that direction that participation between public and private for therunning of the country's economy is the best solution in this era for Ghana,"Aggrey Ntim pointed out.
Ghana'sparliament has yet to ratify the sale agreement officially, as opposingpolitical parties are warning government to refrain from selling Ghana Telecom.