|
GT employees
suspect “machinations” by
competitors to kill Vodafone deal
Accra, Aug. 7, GNA - A group calling itself “The Concerned
Staff of Ghana Telecom (GT)”, on Thursday accused
competitors of the company of engaging in behind the scene
machinations to derail the GT-Vodafone deal.
In a statement emailed to the Ghana News Agency, the group
said:
"We the concerned staff
of GT cannot rule out the behind the scenes machinations by
competitors in the GT-Vodafone saga which they will be happy
to see derailed because they know the entry of Vodafone into
the Ghanaian market is a big threat to their businesses."
The group registered its support for the deal and catalogued
14 reasons why the deal was the most suitable for GT.
It said GT cannot survive the impending heated competition
if the Vodafone deal failed.
"We believe Vodafone has the
international clout in the telecom industry worldwide which
GT can leverage on when it comes to international
transactions and compete effectively with MTN, Zain, Glo,
Tigo and Kasapa which are all multinationals."
The government has signed a deal to offload 70 percent of
its stake in the GT to Vodafone for 900 million dollars.
The announcement of the deal, signed on July 3 this year,
generated heated debate between critics and supporters of
the deal.
Among the critics are journalists, politicians, economists,
the clergy, civil society organizations and unionists.
Even before the scheduled Parliamentary debate of the Sale
Partnership Agreement (SPA) on August 12, a group from the
Convention People’s Party (CPP) has initiated moves to take
the government to court to stop the sale.
Management and senior staff of GT have registered their full
support for the sale.
The Concerned Staff also expressed fears that should the
GT-Vodafone deal failed, GT would collapse under the
pressure of existing and in coming competitions.
"All our competitors are multinationals and the investments
they are making in the areas of fibre-optics, 3G services
and other things could have perilous consequences on GT's
operations if we do not respond by also investing in these
technologies.”
The group argued that raising money from the stock exchange
would take too much time that GT would lose out on the
forecast six million subscribers that all the six players
were competing for within the next few years.
"GT does not have the necessary funds to lay an efficient
fibre-optics cable, much more acquire a 3G license from the
National Communications Authority (NCA) like our competitors
have," it said.
The group noted that already, Onetouch, the mobile telephony
wing of GT, was losing some of its lucrative corporate
customers to competition because GT did not belong to a
multinational group.
"Onetouch lost its Nestle corporate account to MTN about
three months ago because MTN gave Nestle a package Onetouch
could not match," it said.
MTN customers in Ghana for instance could call MTN customers
in Nigeria for instance and pay local charge of GH¢0.146 per
minute whilst Onetouch customer paid GH¢0.220 for a similar
call.
The group said GT had also been experiencing decline in
revenues from its International Roaming Services because MTN
and Tigo, with their respective international affiliates,
had negotiated traffic steering deals with major mobile
operators all over the world where all roaming traffic or
calls destined for Ghana were technically directed onto MTN
and Tigo network.
It noted that Zain, one of new multinational entrants, had
scheduled to launch its "Africa One" service by November
2008.
This would enable Zain customers from Ghana to use the
service in other countries where Zain had operations and pay
local charges instead of paying roaming rates.
Glo had a similar product, the group added.
"GT is at risk of losing more corporate customers," it said.
It also blamed the third positions of GT/Onetouch in the
mobile phone service market on low quality of service as
recorded in the last NCA ratings, saying that GT needed new
equipment and spare parts to fix its network quality
problems.
Currently, some of GT's billing and switching systems are
inefficient and they lead to revenue leakages.
"GT needs to replace and overhaul these systems with state
of the art equipment, which we believe Vodafone has the
capacity to provide in order to maximize revenue
generation."
The group complained that the 4,200 staff of GT risked
losing their jobs and being made redundant if the Vodafone
deal failed due to the current precarious financial
situation of the company.
GNA
|
