Business News of Wednesday, 15 March 2006

Source: GNA

GT to credit overcharged Internet operators at Hohoe

Hohoe, March 15, (Awumah) GNA - The management of Ghana Telecom (GT) is to credit its Internet clientele operating within Hohoe District who were overcharged by the company.

Mr Emmanuel Amoah-Duah, Commercial Manager in charge of Billing announced this at a forum dubbed "Time With GT" held at Hohoe. Mr Amoah-Duah was responding to concerns made by Mr Godwin Fiakpornu an Internet operator about high bills caf=E9 operators had to pay leading to the closure of five Internet centres. Mr Amoah-Duah said investigations into the anomaly had been completed therefore, bills to be submitted in March bill would show actual figures.

He explained that the problem was due to a technical programming error, which led to double billing of Internet operators. Mr Fiakpornu, Chief Executive of Emmason Centre, complained that he paid six million cedis in October and 11.4 million cedis in November last year, for six hours link-up on the Internet. He noted that with a charge of 75 cedis per minute, the amount for October should have been 900,000 cedis and 1.8 million cedis for November.

Mr Emmanuel Dziko, General Manager in charge of Strategy and Business Development of GT, said management was working hard to upgrade existing products and services.

He said new products would be introduced to improve quality of service and rebuild its corporate image.

Mr Dziko said GT had replaced all electro-mechanical switches with enhanced digital equipment, introduced wireless solutions to complement the copper cable network to beef up its managerial capacity and expertise to remain focused and competitive.

He pointed out that even though GT appreciated that its service delivery was not the best, there had been improvement. Mr Selorm Fiador, Commercial Manager in-charge of Customer Service called on the public to patronize GT products and services especially the Easy Talk, Easy Phone Prepaid and Postpaid cards.

He advised them to avoid wasting time on call holds and refrain from dealing with intermediaries.

Mr Seth Seglah, Hohoe District Head of GT said currently 1,158 lines had been connected from its 5,000 capacity network within the district.

He said wireless loops had been replaced by cellular terminals in areas without cable networks with drop circuits to serve Jasikan and Kadjebi districts. Mr Seglah said acceptance test was being run on the GT One Touch network at Chinderi in the Krachi-West district. Other issues discussed at the forum included poor customer service, delayed delivery of services, slow response to fault complaints and inadequate information on billing procedures. 15 March 06