I do not know who Vodafone has appointed to run its Ghanaian operation. Whoever the person is had better ensure that the old corporate culture of impunity amongst GT’s staff does not continue.
My own recent tribulations when I tried desperately hard to have my broadband internet service, for which I had pre-paid, restored, has made me wonder if there have been any real changes at Ghana Telecom – and if we will not witness a repeat of the Telenor fiasco, yet again: when foreign carpetbaggers are handed over a valuable Ghanaian asset to milk dry for their own benefit at our country’s expense. Has Vodafone even paid for its 70 per cent stake in full one wonders?
My broadband internet access was halted unexpectedly recently – and without any warning whatsoever: apart from being told in passing by a gentleman who brought me a spanking new “smart-phone” (and was more interested in my giving out my new telephone number to as many of my friends as possible – no doubt so that his masters could listen in on my conversations!) that someone would come and change the antenna as they were upgrading the system and were phasing out the old Alvarion system.
After over a week of getting nowhere whenever I have asked for a time-frame within which the service would be restored; as well as countless fruitless appeals to some of GT’s Care 4U customer service centre supervisors I spoke to by telephone, to be reconnected that all fell on deaf ears; being tossed from one GT Care 4 U centre to another for a USB port cable and always leaving empty-handed; and being given one empty promise after another to have my service finally restored, I have now reached the end of my tether.
I am currently asking for quotations from a number of more reliable broadband internet service providers – so that I am never held to ransom by such dissimulating incompetents ever again.
To cap it all, I strongly suspect that some of the powerful crooks in the current regime whom I criticise online regularly in the blogosphere, are using Ghana’s secret services to mount surveillance on my electronic pathways to the world – with an assist from GT.
Incidentally, I am also aghast that Vodafone’s Ghanaian employees have refused to reveal the location of the computer used by the person behind the infamous ‘hit-list’ currently circulating in Ghana – of a number of persons allegedly marked for elimination. Apparently, the fellow who originally sent the email containing the list of names did so at about 3am from a computer at an internet café that apparently uses GT as its ISP.
Surely, Vodafone would have quickly revealed the exact place that email was sent from to the security agencies as well as to the media, if such a monstrosity had occurred in the UK – so why aren’t they doing so in Ghana too: when fighting terrorism is supposed to be a global effort by all the world’s democracies, big and small?
Perhaps Radio Gold FM’s intrepid reporter, Roland Acquah Stevens, should simply get his radio station’s internet radio associate in the UK to contact the media in the UK directly and tell them of the curious refusal of Vodafone/GT to provide the information they are seeking about the ID of the lunatic who is seeking to cause panic in Ghana by spreading falsehood designed to spread fear nationwide – clearly in furtherance of the propaganda objective of stopping Ghanaians from voting for the candidate of the National Democratic Congress in the run-off of the presidential election on 28th December 2008.
But I digress – back to my own GT tribulations of late. It is essential that Vodafone clearly understands that if at any given point in time, GT has to cooperate with the security agencies to mount surveillance on some of its customers, it must ensure that the same standards that govern its relations with the security services in the UK in such circumstances, apply here too – as it is possible that some of its customers here are UK citizens who also happen to be Ghanaian citizens.
Criticizing the government isn’t criminal under our constitution. Consequently, Vodafone must protect itself from being sued in future by those who criticize the government of the day – for patriotic reasons and are bugged for that reason by the security agencies: possibly with the active collaboration of some of GT’s staff.
In the web 2.0 age, when at the click of a computer mouse, the transgressions of multi-national corporations, even in some of the remotest locations in the developing world, can be brought to the attention of the public in their home countries, it just doesn’t make sense for Vodafone to allow itself to be dragged into the abuse of the human rights of dissident Ghanaians by our security services – who for some extraordinary reason seem to regard critics of the current regime as enemies of the Ghanaian nation-state.
Any patriotic Ghanaian has a right to question the Vodafone takeover of GT – and to demand that members of government answer specific questions raised by them on the subject.
I am becoming increasingly irritated by the fact that having pre-paid for a broadband internet service, my ISP, GT, seems suddenly unable to deliver that service to me, every time I criticise the incompetents who have brought our country to a dead end – and who seem to think that asset-stripping the enterprise Ghana and handing over prized national assets to foreigners (whose own capitalist governments back home are busy pumping taxpayers’ money into private businesses in partial-nationalizations in order to save their national economies, even as we speak!) is the way to develop our country.
Perhaps it is mere coincidence, but I am sure that the tabloid press in the UK would be delighted to hear about the overseas activities of a major British telecoms company, which is actively colluding with the secret services of a corrupt African nation to abuse the human rights of local people who criticise a dodgy privatization of the state-owned telecoms company – and for which the crooks amongst those running the country even had to railroad a bill through parliament to indemnify all those involved in the deal, from future criminal prosecution!
It is important that Vodafone understands clearly that all its customers in Ghana, including myself, have a constitutionally guaranteed right to speak their minds freely without being persecuted – just as the crooks amongst those who run Ghana today, too, have a right to sue people like me for libel if they think I have libeled them. Period.
I demand that Vodafone compensates me for all those endless hours (in total, i.e.!) that I have been denied broadband internet access for which I had paid through the nose in advance - just for exercising my constitutional right to also enjoy the freedom of expression that all the citizens of Ghana have a right to enjoy in our supposedly democratic nation.
Above all, Vodafone must be mindful of the fact that it is a multinational that is a major player in markets in the West in which public opinion cares about what the companies whose services citizens purchase get up to in distant lands – particularly when it involves the collaboration of those multinationals with the secret services of corrupt African nations: in the abuse of the human rights of the citizenry by local despots.
Should this nonsense on bamboo stilts continue, I will not hesitate to sue Vodafone in the UK as well as in Brussels under EU human rights legislation – as well as use my contacts amongst fellow media professionals in the UK to bring this outrage to the attention of Vodafone’s customers in Britain.
There have simply been far too many ‘coincidences’ of my posting critical articles about the GT takeover deal online and my being denied my pre-paid broadband internet access by GT – and I have simply had enough. A word to the wise…
Hmmm, Ghana – entiye awiaye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment