....2X3900=7 EQUATION CAUSING ANXIETY AMONG BOSSES IN NORWAY

Nervous Telenor International officials in Norway have summoned their representatives in Accra to Oslo to explain why the company should continue honouring the Management Service Contract under which the Norwegian firm is being paid twice the wages of the entire 3,900 Ghanaian workforce to manage Ghana Telecom.

Under the contractual agreement the seven management personnel from Norway, now in the country will earn a minimum of $150,000 per month or $1.8m per annum. The wages and other emoluments of the 3,900 Ghanaian workforce come to $1m per annum.

Public Agenda can report authoritatively that worried top officials of the mother company in Norway, threatened to pull out of the Accra deal following negative publicity on the deal in the international media including the worldwide web.

A crisis meeting was called in Oslo last Monday at which Oskar Seim, Telenor’s Director of Finance in charge at Ghana Telecom was summoned to give a detailed account of events in Accra. Ghana Government was represented at the meeting by E.K. Adu, Ambassador to Denmark with oversight responsibility for Norway.

At the time of going to press Friday, Agenda learned that Oystein Bjorge, the Norwegian Managing Director of Ghana Telecom has also flown to Norway. It is believed the new boss is in the Norwegian capital on a special mission to try and calm down the nerves of his bosses.

Meanwhile a number of Norwegian journalists have inundated the Public Agenda e-mail address with requests for information on the knotty points in the Telenor deal.

Agenda has learned that while the heat is yet to abate on the Telenor deal, Telekom Malaysia are also applying pressure to reap maximum benefit from the 30 percent investment in Ghana Telecom. Representatives of the Malaysian company scheduled to meet with other Board members of Ghana Telecom in Accra to resolve the impasse over their shares failed to turn up. Instead, Telekom Malaysia sent a terse Fax message saying that more pressing issues have engaged the attention of those originally scheduled to take part in the Accra meeting.

Close observers in the telecommunications industry are interpreting this to mean that Telekom Malaysia are more interested in pressing their claims before the International Arbitration Court in London where they are seeking $300m for their 30 percent share than to fly to Accra for a meeting that would not yield any positive results from their point of view.

Apart from the $300m, Telekom Malaysia are also demanding a reimbursement of $50m allegedly paid to the government of the National Democratic Congress in 2000 for a further 15 percent share to bring their total investment in Ghana Telecom to 45 percent. The Malaysians claim that though the money was paid, the deal could not go through.

Telekom Malaysia are also demanding a sum of $7.5m for outstanding from managing Ghana Telecom from 1997 to April 2002.