... HOW GOV'T IS BEING BLED WHITE
...... New GT Management Saves Govt Billions
The Ghanaian Chronicle has gathered that in less than one month since the installation of systems by the new management at Ghana Telecom, revenue has multiplied six fold and the leakage that was costing government billions of cedis every week has drastically reduced.

The unprecedented positive swing of the earnings ratio appears to confirm Chronicle earlier reports of questionable practices in the sector.

What was not discussed, as the core issue during the recent controversial and frenzied media reports over Ghana Telecom-Telenor was the issue of the source of Telecom’s failure to control losses and return meaningful returns to the government and the taxpayer.

But today (Monday), as the telecom industry examine the sector at the controversial M Plaza (hotel) in Accra, one issue that is likely to come up is called the ‘Bypass’ operation and the enormous revenue that it generates.

However rather than Ghana Telecom or Government coffers, the phenomenon of the ‘bypass’ Telecom’s operation has been benefiting private pockets instead of government via Ghana Telecom.

For example, it has emerged that one operator alone, the loudest in the industry, Dr Nii Narku Quaynor (pictured with President Kufuor), Chief Executive of Network Computer Systems, Network Herald, and a host of other companies possesses as many as 800 telephone lines from Ghana Telecom when most businesses including The Chronicle are having problems getting more than two telephone lines in certain parts of Accra. (Quaynor is a part owner of Ghana Telecom, has indecent advantages through his work and association at GNPC which owns Westel,etc). Dr. Quaynor has an additional 60 telephone lines from Westel.

It has been established that forces in the Telecom industry who are most likely to be affected by Telenor’s management system have been loudest in kicking against Telenor which beat six other companies in a competitive bidding process last year.

Inquiries through sources at the Bureau of National Investigations have confirmed that there is a recognition of the phenomenon of high-technology in short-changing the system to the detriment of the national interest. The legal challenges are still unclear however.

How the technological short-changing blossomed under the previous government which pursued the business of Telekom Malaysia, continued even under the second half of the Rawlings administration with the installation of Hon. John Mahama as Minister of Communications during which a few telecom operators like TinAfa were accosted by the National Communications Authority (NCA) and had their satellites and technological gizmos seized has again become a subject of curiosity and high level examination.

The full extent of Dr. Quaynor’s stranglehold and continuing role is a baffling development that appears to raise suspicion that top men in Government, including possibly, the Minister of Communications Hon. Felix Owusu Adjepong himself may be complicit. He has not done anything to right the wrong and Chronicle is dusting up for a showdown.

There is an obscene amount of foreign exchange to be made in this ‘invisible’ high-tech ‘fraud’ and the speculation is that maybe too many people are being attracted. An industry player explained the way some Internet Service Providers operate though the telephone bypass system.

The ‘bypass’ market route operators like NCS typically have their networks set up so that they do not go through the traditional Ghana telecom infrastructure.

In a typical arrangement calls made from say united States of America are sent via satellites operated by private telecom operators in the US to a landing point in Ghana operated by Ghana Telecom which is then expected to transmit the call to its final destination in KorleBu or Takoradi and be paid in dollars for that service. This US based company then pays GhanaTel an amount based upon the agreed tariffs between the countries.

In a ‘bypass’ arrangement however, the US based company will send their traffic to a partner, like NCS (Dr. Narku Quaynor) who has satellites. In his case his satellite is mounted right opposite the head office of BNI in Accra. He has also leased many lines- an essential pre-requisite.

The international call from New York will then look like a local call when it is transmitted via Quaynor’s satellite and so would only attract cedi rates at local call rate. Since Ghana Telecom will not know this or has not the capacity to know, the much higher tariffs that the caller in New York would have paid will then be split between a company like say IDT in US and UK, and in this scenario, a company like NCS.

Ultimately, the Ghana Government and Ghana Telecom would be the only ones that will be suffering the financial loss. NCS or operators like them who may have such arrangement plus the requisite infrastructure would be enriching themselves instead. They will split the dollars r pounds between them and the overseas partners after paying for the cedi local rates to GT.

According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), as much as 50% of a country’s stated incoming traffic may be attributed to these types of ‘bypass’ operators. The only way out for a country like Ghana, is to regularise and enter the market and get into a revenue –sharing arrangement with legitimate operators. Dr Quaynor stands in the dock as principal architect of high tech impropriety because he us the only one of the players.

Chronicle holds a database of the players in the Telecom saga obtained through patient compilation and monitoring, and intelligence evaluations over the years complete with official Serious Fraud Office documentation obtained when the only genuine man ever to head the SFO Dominic DeGraft Aidoo became the only legally and constitutionally appointed Acting Executive Secretary of the SFO.

Names like Commander P.G. Griffiths, Mavis Sintim Misah (until recently Mavis Ampah) a US trained/former World Bank consultant at the Ministry of Communications during the Rawlings administration (now operating from South Africa) and Dr Quaynor are some of the many names that may help shed light on the chaotic porous environment that has dogged the telecom sector over the years.

The authorities have not regularized Dr Quaynor’s brazen conflict of interest situation. According to the experts because of the immense financial benefits ‘it is difficult to regulate the telecoms due to the large economic incentives given to all the links in the chain’.

Dr Quaynor was not only a consultant based in the office of Tsatsu Tsikata’s GNPC, he benefited through the allocation of GNPC properties which he is alleged to have bought. He benefited from GNPC’s ownership of Westel when Tsatsu put his ‘now’ brother –in-law Dr. Cobbah (senior brother of Esther Cobbah nee Baah Boakye) as the defacto chief executive of Westel. He obtained 60 telephone lines when most businesses could not get even one line from Westel too.

Then the coup de grace: Narku Quaynor owns Ghana Telecom by virtue of him partnering with Telekom Malaysia via his company G-COM.

He owns an astonishing 800 telephone lines! Game keeper, poacher and consumer all rolled into one. He owns Network Herald newspaper too which was noisiest in the Telecom-Telenor debate. Could it be that he was likely to lose out when the holes are plugged as Telenor has already started to do, and reaping the rewards for the taxpayer.

(The Ghanaian Chronicle has more details that is holding for now like who was playing which role even within Government and the use of a press officer of the NDC, and a Ghana Telecom executive in media exploitation and manipulation for an angle.)

Dr Quaynor is expected to play a role at the ITU conference now taking place at the controversial M-Plaza hotel. But questions in the telecom, and the obvious lack of action by the authorities in the NPP government is raising concern.

How could Danny Ofori-Atta already indicted by SFO report also walk tall and have his questionable rural telephony business returned to him?. His cousin, Nana Akufo-Addo, is now the Attorney-General and only he can order action into this near bankrupt schemer who has been in and out of police hands like the most celebrated client of the Akufo-Addo Prempeh and Co chambers- Nana Anim Addo, the ultimate gold con man.? Akufo-Addo is said to have formally disconnected from his chambers, but questions simply do not go away.

Anim Addo’s whose antics have shamed Ghana and placed it in the international maps of shame may have cause to boast that his man is now the Minister of Justice and Attorney General. Meanwhile the Ghana public expectantly looks up for genuine positive change, something that is fast becoming illusory through acts of omission and commission.