Ineffective revenue collection coupled with corrupt practices on the part of some officials of the Ghana Telecom (GT) has resulted in huge outstanding bills of over 202 billion cedis owed by customers to the Company as at September 2001.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ghana Telecom (GT), Professor Stephen Kwabena Boakye Asante, made this known at a durbar with the staff of the company at Koforidua, as part of a day's working visit to the Eastern Region.

Besides the problems associated with the Stock Purchase and Sale Agreement signed between the government and G. Com Limited of Malaysia, which was currently subject of negotiations, the Board was also confronted with "a host of interlocking problems that had militated against the progress of GT in the various areas of management and operation."

Among them were inadequate financial resources to settle debts owed to some international suppliers and contractors resulting in the inability of the company to expand and modernise its operations.

He mentioned poor billing and inefficient and ineffective service delivery as well as the delay in installing new telephones and restoring faulty ones, which had provoked sustained public outcry against the performance of the company.

Professor Asante said the Board, since assumption of office in July 2001, had been making strenuous efforts to give GT a new orientation to enable it to be viable and competitive in meeting the challenges of the information age and effective implementation of the government's telecommunication policy.

He said the Board was in the process of establishing "rewarding partnerships" between GT and a number of similar companies in Europe, America, Asia and Africa to put the company on the world telecommunication map.

The Board, with the assistance of the International Communication Union (ICU), Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation (CTO) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, was also restructuring the company to meet the challenges of the information revolution.

Professor Asante announced that a new subsidiary company would also be created to operate the ONE-TOUCH and upgrade and expand the GT Training School to provide communication education to teachers to enable them implement the government's policy of providing schools and colleges with computers and internet Inter-connectivity.

The upgrading and expansion of the school was also to create a bilingual "Centre of Excellence for the ECOWAS sub-region for the training of policy makers, administrators and regulators."

Professor Asante said the pay-phone system would also be strengthened to increase revenue and enhance the company's public image while a partnership would be established with School Net Africa, to facilitate information and communication technologies in schools.

He gave an assurance that the measures being taken by the Board would not in any way affect their job security and urged them to work hard to promote the image of the company.

Earlier, the Board Chairman inspected some new telephone facilities installed by the company in the New Juaben Municipality.

The Eastern Regional Director of the company, Mr Paul Evans Amuzu, who took the chairman round, said 5,000 new digital exchange lines had been installed to increase telephones lines in the municipality to 9,000.

He said the company was in the process of switching the lines from the old customer network to the new network and called on the residents to cooperate.