My frustration at trying to get the arrogant and hard-of-hearing individuals amongst those who run Vodafone Ghana to pay me compensation in kind, shows just how some foreign investors abuse Ghanaian consumers with complete impunity.
Why should I pay millions of cedis since November 2010, when I bought my BlackBerry from Vodafone Ghana, and have to continuously put up with an atrocious internet access that is unstable most times - and be ignored when I demand that Vodafone Ghana pay my next month's broadband bundle to compensate me, I ask, dear reader?
Would Vodafone Ghana's British executives dare ignore a dissatisfied BlackBerry customer in the UK, Spain or the Netherlands, I ask? Certainly not. So why should my demand for compensation continue to fall on deaf ears?
In a sense, perhaps one shouldn't blame Vodafone Ghana's over-pampered and over-paid British executives - who are living in Ghana like Arabian oil Sheiks at our expense: at a time when even the genuine article now understands that excess is foolish.
Perhaps one rather ought to blame the short-sighted and stupid Ghanaian politicians who went ahead and broke our country's laws (Section 2 of the Divestiture of State Interest Act is the pertinent part of the law in question - showing who should sell what and how!) and sold a state-owned Ghana Telecom (GT) worth some US$5 billions - in today's values! - to Vodafone for a paltry US$900 millions.
The question is, will those who now rule our country too allow Vodafone Ghana to continue getting away with treating its customers so shabbily - without being sanctioned in any way at all: especially when the blackguards who sold GT to them told us it would result in better service?
Well, we are watching how our current leaders too will deal with complaints about foreigners who come to Ghana and treat paying customers with disdain and do so with complete impunity - and will advise ourselves appropriately.
Vodafone Ghana must not be allowed to take millions of cedis from its BlackBerry customers, and provide rubbish internet access that is unstable in return - and get away with refusing to pay compensation to those of its BlackBerry customers who refuse to put up with such an outrage.
The National Communications Authority (NCA) must step in - and act to protect Ghanaian consumers from such outrageous rip-offs. And I don't want to be told that I should "port" my number and move elsewhere, if I am dissatisfied with Vodafone Ghana's BlackBerry service.
To that asinine suggestion, I say: What about the millions of cedis of my money it has taken regularly without fail, all this while? Vodafone Ghana must be decent enough to pay me compensation - by bearing the cost of my next broadband data-bundle. Period.
That is a matter of principle for me - as they would do so were I a paying BlackBerry customer of theirs in the UK or the EU, who was dissatisfied with their service.
And speaking as a Ghanaian journalist who has never sold his conscience before, and consequently fears no one, I feel that for the sake of all their dissatisfied customers in Ghana, who are unable to speak up for themselves, Vodafone Ghana must be forced to treat their Ghanaian customers in exactly the same way that they treat their customers in the West. Period. A word to the wise...
Tel (powered by Tigo - the one mobile phone network in Ghana that actually works!): + 233 (0) 27 745 3109.
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