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Regulatory body needed to protect mobile phone users
Accra, Jan. 30, Ghanadot/GNA- Professor
Emmanuel Owusu-Bennoah, Director-General of the Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), on Wednesday
advocated the formulation of a policy and creation of a
regulatory environment that would protect the interest of
mobile phone consumers.
He said "It is equally important that we develop a good
policy that will ensure fair play, promote competition,
protect interest of consumers and in fact ensure holistic
development of the industry."
These were contained in an address read on behalf of Prof.
Owusu-Bennoah at a meeting on the development of the mobile
telephone industry in Ghana under the theme:
"Harnessing the potential of mobile telephones for
Micro and Small business development," in Accra on
Wednesday.
He said Ghana deserved to be counted among countries whose
mobile phone industry was viable, innovative and sensitive
to the needs of subscribers to facilitate socio-economic
development.
Prof. Owusu-Bennoah said there was the need for support from
research institutions to undertake critical assessment of
the industry to help identify best practice in other
countries that could be applied in the development of the
telephony industry in Ghana.
He said the scientific community had not enjoyed much
co-operation from some of the operatives of the country's
Information Communication Technology Sector especially the
Internet service providers.
Prof. Owusu-Bennoah said it was unfortunate that no one at
present had adequate information about the level of Internet
penetration in the country.
He attributed the situation to the close door policy of most
of the internet service providers who refused to share
industry data and information.
Prof. Owusu-Bennoah noted that harnessing the potential of
mobile telephones would require building bridges between all
players in the industry.
He expressed CSIR's preparedness to engage both private and
public sector in addressing the myriad development problems
facing the country and called for a stronger partnership
between stakeholders to move the country forward through the
development, application and utilization of science and
technology.
He advised Internet service providers to open up to
scientific scrutiny to enable policy researchers to know how
the Internet industry was performing to enable them
recommend measures to improve the performance of the service
providers .
Dr. Godfred Frempong, Head of Industry and Service Division
of Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (STEPRI)
of CSIR said CSIR had conducted a research which aimed at
identifying the extent of adoption of mobile telephone by
Micro and Small Business (MSB`s).
He said the main use of mobile telephones by MSB`s, gender
dimension in the usage of mobile telephones in Business,
examining the contributions CSIR had made to facilitate
MSB`s and the regulatory and policy implication of mobile
telephone usage by small business were also studied.
Dr. Frempong explained that the focus on the micro and small
enterprises was based on the fact that they played important
roles in wealth creation and poverty reduction in the less
urban and rural economies of the country.
Mr. John Ocloo a representative of the Consumer Association
of Ghana, called on the telephone industry to improve on
product safety service quality, consumer education and
information.
He said it would be prudent on behalf of the network
providers to make clear how mobile phone users consume their
call credit because consumers currently do not know how
their credit got finished.
GNA
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