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Negotiations to privatise Ghana
Telecom ends in June 2008
Accra, June 24, Ghanadot/GNA-Negotiations for the process to
privatise the Ghana Telecommunication Company (GT) is to
close by the end of June 2008, Dr.
Benjamin Aggrey-Ntim, Minister of Communication announced on
Tuesday in Accra.
He told Parliament while answering questions on the floor of
the House that Government owned 100 percent shares in the
Company, but the shares would be floated on the Ghana Stock
Exchange when privatized.
The Government of Ghana in 2006 took a decision to privatise
the GT and Westel, a sister telecom company, within a
two-year period through the sale of its shares in the two
companies.
The understanding, according to the Minister, was to
introduce competition and also to address issues of access
to rural communities.
It therefore became necessary to seek foreign investment to
modernize publicly-owned telecommunication companies to
enable them to compete in the presently liberalized
telecommunications sector in the country.
Dr. Aggrey-Ntim said the privatization of Westel was
concluded in December 2007, but the offers received from
some of the investors into GT had not been satisfactory and
that had persuaded Government to invite further proposals
from other investors into the GT.
He said Government, in the meantime through an agency
called GIFTEL has intensified its activities through the
erection of telecommunication masts and towers for use by
all operators in previously underserved areas.
The Ghana Communication Authority has also since 2006
divided the country into five zones for the purpose of
granting two operating licenses for the development of Fixed
Wireless Access services in the respective zones.
GNA
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