The Member of Parliament (MP) for Obuasi West, Kwaku Kwarteng, together with Mr Elijah Adansi-Bonah, the Research Director of Development Data (a policy research organisation) has sued the National Communications Authority (NCA) over the Interconnect Clearing House project being initiated by government.
[contextly_sidebar id=”TtuWXwcpveztBF9wboBs6wskqul4ibgS”]The plaintiffs say they took the decision in order to challenge the setting up of the Interconnect Clearing House
The Interconnect Clearing House (ICH) is an operator government is setting up to connect international calls and also interconnect calls between mobile networks on behalf of telecommunications companies (TELCOs) in Ghana.
Currently, the Telcos have developed mutual arrangements and infrastructure for interconnecting calls.
Government is now asking the telcos to abandon their interconnect infrastructure and route their calls through the ICH.
The plaintiffs are however praying the court to declare government’s move as “unlawful and unnecessary.”
They contend that while they have standard agreements with the telcos to transmit their communication, they have no such agreement with any ICH operator.
The plaintiffs further claim that the ICH is an “unconstitutional” interference in the communication rights of all telecommunications service subscribers and are asking the court to order government not to proceed with the implementation of the ICH.
Kwaku Kwarteng argued at various fora that the ICH idea is nothing but “dubious arrangement between government and its cronies in the private sector posing as some ICH company to benefit illegitimately from tax payers’ monies.”
The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has also condemned the government move saying that “The ICH has the potential of crippling the telecoms industry and rolling back the gains made in the sector so far.”
The Wireless Applications Services Providers (WASP) and the Internet Service Providers (ISP) are wholly Ghanaian-owned operators in the telecommunications industry.
They have also condemned the ICH and asked government to abandon the idea.
However, government has proceeded to appoint an ICH operator to build and operate the facility beginning from May 2015. Government has argued that the ICH would help address the issue of SIM box fraud in the country.
But one of the plaintiffs, Mr Elijah Adansi-Bonah, Research Director of Development Data says government has no business taking over something private telecommunications companies have been doing so well as part of their business operations.
Joined to the court suit are the six major telecommunications companies in Ghana.
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana