How TELENOR Management Partners (TMP) ended up as TELECOM Management Partners (TMP)
Don’t believe the hype and certainly, don’t trust all the data churned out as proof of achievements of the Norwegians at Ghana Telecom (GT).

Continuing investigations into the state-owned company have revealed that data released to sections of the media by the dismissed Norwegian team to counter reports led by this paper on Ghana Telecom is vitiated by deception and misrepresentation, meant to mislead the public.

For example, while the sacked Norwegian team insisted in their widely publicised statement in some newspapers that it exceeded expectation and fulfilled its contract to provide a minimum 400,000 fixed lines in three years, it has emerged that they failed to meet the standard even after they had been given an additional year on top of their contract to manage GT.

Evidence also suggests that while the Norwegians provided the public with cooked figures, they provided the real figures to the sector Minster Professor Mike Ocquaye and the Ministry of Communications.

In its release titled, FACTS and FIGURES on the privatization of GT, published in the media, Telecom Management Partners (read a forthcoming report on how the original contracted Norwegian team Telenor Management Partners (TMP) ended up as Telecom Management Partners (TMP), another Norway-registered company with same abbreviation but different ownership et all) claimed that it provided over 555,000 lines between the period 2003 to 2005.

This claim, checked against evidence provided by TMP to the Ministry of Communications and information from informed staff of GT to this paper, proves to be totally false.

Significantly, while the Norwegians sought to deceive Ghanaians into believing the cooked figures, its own documentation to the Ministry of Communications, which were subsequently made available by the Minister to his colleague MPs in Parliament last Friday revealed the truth.

Speaking on JOY FM’s Newsfile programme last Saturday, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, MP for Tamale South, tendered in evidence a report presented to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications as part of briefings by the Ministry of Communications at the 2007 Budget Hearing, which suggests that GT had been manipulating data on its inability to meet the set target on fixed or land lines in their contract.

The programme, which also saw the author of this story raising concerns about the deceptive use of the name TMP and the change in its shareholding structure among other issues, led to the revelation that GT failed to meet the set target even after the deadline was quietly extended by a year for them.

“The significance here is that they failed to meet this target even when they were given an additional year beyond their contract agreement”, noted this reporter who appeared on the programme together with Mr Kweku Baako, Editor-in-Chief of the Crusading Guide and Honourable Haruna Iddrisu.

The documents by the Ministry also showed that while the dismissed former partners, Telekom Malaysia, added over 170,000 land lines by increasing the fixed lines network from a paltry 78,000 to almost 249,000, the Norwegians added almost 111,000 lines.

In the document on their self-acclaimed achievements, the Norwegians padded figures of fixed cellular network lines or fixed mobile phones, which run on ONETOUCH cellular platforms to the data on fixed lines, while reportedly retaining the fixed cellular lines at the same time as a different index on their achievement list and as part of the numbers of ONETOUCH lines they claim to have rolled out.

But Ocquaye’s brief to Parliament last Friday exposed the claim that GT has rolled out over 555,000 fixed lines under the Norwegians as a lie.

“From a 2001 fixed line figure of 248,900, as at September 2006 the number had increased to 365,000 representing a five-year increase of 147%,” Professor Mike Ocquaye, who inherited the Telecom deal after being given the schedule during the last ministerial reshuffle, told Parliament.

Significantly, reports in sections of the media yesterday quoted the President of the Senior Staff Association of GT, Mr Godwin Jiagge, in various interviews, admitting that TMP failed to deliver on their promised or contracted 400,000 lines.

Interestingly, the business plan which was the basis for the agreement reached between Telenor and later Telecom Management Partners was drawn by the Norwegians.

They received $600,000 for drawing up that business plan, sparking a crusade by the Ben Ephson-edited Daily Dispatch and Public Agenda newspapers over the deal in 2002.

Jiagge also thanked the government for finally waking up to the realisation to cancel the contract with the Norwegians.