{"id":97952,"date":"2015-03-10T06:34:32","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T06:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=97952"},"modified":"2015-03-10T06:34:32","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T06:34:32","slug":"occupy-ghana-demands-full-disclosure-on-ich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2015\/03\/occupy-ghana-demands-full-disclosure-on-ich\/","title":{"rendered":"Occupy Ghana demands full disclosure on ICH"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pressure group OccupyGhana has written to the National Communication Authority (NCA) requesting for correspondence and information exchanged between the authority and its stakeholders prior to the approval of the Interconnect Clearing House<\/strong><\/a><\/span> (ICH) policy.<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”vmvD0K29UFZ2UXkLYyNUS1EFQ8kj3ylv”]Critics of the ICH<\/strong><\/a><\/span> believe the policy is not in the best interest of Ghana but government insist it is a way of monitoring the activities of of the telecommunication companies and a way of discouraging SIM box fraud.<\/p>\n

Member of Parliament for Obuasi West, Kwaku Kwarteng and a Research Director of Development Data (a policy research organisation),\u00a0Mr Elijah Adansi-Bonah\u00a0have sued the NCA<\/span><\/strong><\/a> for trying to implement the ICH policy and are praying the court to declare it as “unlawful and unnecessary.”<\/p>\n

According to the letter dated March 9, OccupyGhana has given the NCA seven working days to make the information available to them.<\/p>\n

“\u2026Persuant to Article 21 (1) (f) of the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, we hereby respectfully seek the additional information\u2026in respect of the purported Interconnect Clearing House policy and proposed license, and request that it be supplied in the next seven (7) working day,” the letter from OccupyGhana stated.<\/p>\n

OccupyGhana in the letter also demanded that the NCA should gives them\u00a0\u201cminutes and\/or notes of all related meetings and discussions involving NCA personnel, directors, board members, and outside persons, prior to NCA making its policy recommendations to the Ministry (per NCA mandate).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMinutes and\/or notes of all related meetings and discussions involving NCA personnel, directors, board members, Ministry personnel (including the Minister and Deputy Ministers) and outside persons, whether initiated by NCA, the Ministry, or any other person, in which policy recommendations from NCA or policy goals from the Ministry were presented or discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Per the ICH policy government is asking the TELCOS to abandon their interconnect infrastructure and route their calls through the ICH.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n

Follow @AlloteyGodwin<\/a>
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