PROTECT CONSUMERS FROM TELECOMS COMPANIES IN GHANA!

Recently, I heard an official from the European Commission department responsible for the telecoms industry, explaining to BBC world service listeners, how the process that leads to EU legislation works. In that particular instance, he explained how legislation limiting mobile phone rates charged by EU telecoms companies across the EU, was initiated by the commission – for eventual passage into legislation by the EU Parliament to protect consumers across the EU. I couldn’t help feeling a sense of outrage that in Ghana, where owning a mobile phone company is tantamount to being given a license to print money, there seems to be no one protecting Ghanaian consumers, from the perfidy of the telecoms companies operating here.

Millions of mobile phone users, as well as the relatively small number of broadband internet subscribers in Ghana, often wonder why the ministry of communications and the industry’s regulator, the National Communications Authority (NCA), don’t order the telecoms companies operating in Ghana to rather spend the trillions of cedis they splash out on advertising, to ensure that their networks work satisfactorily, instead. Surely, they are aware of the deep sense of dissatisfaction, which is felt by many Ghanaians, about the atrocious product quality of the mobile networks of the telecoms companies operating here? Could the cynics be right in saying that the mobile phone companies in Ghana are getting away with murder because they have most of officialdom in their very deep pockets?

Well, not too long ago, I heard a “grapevine-story” that one of the mobile phone companies had given the minister of communications a brand new Toyota saloon car as a personal gift – and immediately went to the ministry of communications and left a note in the office of the minister: asking him to confirm or deny the rumour. I am still waiting to hear from him – but knowing what a decent gentleman he is, I doubt very much if that brilliant young minister would accept such a gift. Hopefully, when he reads this, he will share his answer to my query, with the rest of the world. The minister for communications will do well to try and find out, for the sake of mobile phone and broadband internet users in Ghana, if in fact the cynics are right – that the arrogance of the mobile phone companies operating in Ghana is because they have been operating in this country on the basis that every Ghanaian official has a price and therefore can get away with making only the barest minimum investment needed in providing their services.

The minister of communications must make sure that those in officialdom who are supposed to protect Ghanaian consumers from being ripped off are not firmly on-side with the telecoms companies – because some of them have been compromised. As we speak, I am still waiting to hear from Vodafone, as to precisely when they will replace the defunct Alvarion broadband wireless internet service, which GT used to provide its “Broadband 4U” internet subscribers, who live in McCarthy Hill. My pre-paid service (account number 207888 which still has 95 Ghana cedis in it) was suspended without anyone from GT giving me advance notice – apart from a gentleman and a lady who called to give me a “smartfone” and said someone from GT would come and replace my antennae in due course because GT was upgrading the Alvarion system. Nothing was said about a sudden shutdown of the system.

I doubt very much if Vodafone would be so bold, as to completely ignore an EU broadband internet subscriber it had treated in similar fashion, who had even gone as far as posting complaining articles addressed to its CEO online in a web-blog, if one lived in an EU member-nation. Yet, he has no qualms about doing that here, in my case. Perhaps the minister of communications can find out from the CEO of Vodafone just when they will replace the Alvarion system for their broadband internet subscribers who live in McCarthy Hill. Over the period since the Alvarion system was discontinued, I have been to their Dansoman “Care 4U Centre”; their customer service centre in the Kwame Nkrumah Circle HQ building; and to their High Street Greater Accra regional office; without getting any satisfaction whatsoever. I hope they will do the decent thing and give me a year’s free internet service to make up for the inconvenience they have caused me, thus far.

The latest outrage, is that the lady who originally gave me my Vodafone Connect USB device (Vodafone Connect is a lousy and super-expensive dial-up service that is no substitute for the discontinued Alvarion wireless broadband system, incidentally) at their Dansoman “Care 4U Centre”, now incredibly denies being the one who actually gave it to me – and only heaven knows why she is now playing hide-and-seek with the truth. The last straw was buying some units (10 Ghana cedis) from that selfsame Dansoman “Care 4U Centre” just recently, to top up my USB as an experiment (after I had come to the rather painful conclusion, that I had to try the Vodafone Connect service again, if I wanted to get online from McCarthy Hill – following a conversation I had had with the regional manager at their High Street Greater Accra regional office), only to find a message on my computer screen informing me, amazingly, that it was a wrong SIM card. Consequently, I am back to square one and still have no internet access. However, I am a tenacious fellow – and will never give up my quest to ensure that Vodafone treats disgruntled customers like myself fairly (and with a modicum of respect too, if I may add), and eventually compensates me for messing up my online writing output.

Vodafone Ghana’s CEO may choose to ignore complaining articles written and posted online by insignificant individuals in Ghana – but he must always remember that in the internet age, the transgressions of powerful multinational companies in the developing world can be brought to the attention of the rest of the world, by the click of a computer mouse. He must also take note of the recent ruling by a US federal court judge that US companies can be sued at home in the American law courts by foreign entities and individuals, for actions arising out of their overseas operations. The EU may choose to follow suit someday – so he had better change his ways fast. Clearly, the telecoms companies in Ghana have adopted the telecoms equivalent of the “pile-‘em-high-sell-‘em-cheap” strategy so beloved of cowboys of the Arthur Daley ilk to rip Ghanaians off successfully – and by saturating Ghana’s cash-strapped media with advertising revenue, they appear to have successfully bought the silence of society’s watchdogs too: and thus think they can act with impunity.

The minister of communications and the regime he is such a prominent member of, must understand that the Vodafones of this world are here to exploit our country for the benefit of their shareholders abroad – not to help the government of Ghana build our nation. That is why when it bought shares in Kenya’s state-owned telecoms company, a secret stake was given to corrupt Kenyan politicians – presumably to enable them get way with sharp practice there that they wouldn’t dare engage in, in the EU, the US, and elsewhere in the developed world where they operate. He must keep a close eye on the operations of Vodafone and the other telecoms companies here – and ensure that they provide quality service at affordable prices to consumers in Ghana. How some of us vote in the next elections in December 2012 will depend on how the government treats companies like Vodafone – and protects Ghanaian workers and consumers from such companies: especially predatory foreign companies that are able to persuade crooked Ghanaian politicians to railroad bills through parliament securing them legislation indemnifying those who strike privatization deals that benefit them from future prosecution. A word to the wise…