'NDC Fools All' Over Vodafone

Fredrick Opare-Ansah

FORMER DEPUTY Minister for Communications, Fredrick Opare-Ansah, has rubbished Government's claim that it is 're-engaging' the Management of Vodafone International on the sale of majority shares in Ghana Telecommunication Company (GT), stressing the exercise is a complete waste of the country's scarce resources.

“This is a contract based on a signed and approved agreement. Everything they bought is covered by the agreement. So this is like a merry go round, a waste of time and resources,” Hon. Opare-Ansah stressed.

For government to say it was not abrogating the contract and at the same time claim it was going to review the deal, according to the former Deputy Minister for Communications, was difficult to understand.

Opare-Ansah said the hue and cry of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the sale of 70 percent of GT to UK Telecom giant, Vodafone, was unfortunate, emphasizing that there was nothing new in the report of the Inter-Ministerial Review Committee on the purchase agreement to warrant the so-called re-engagement, as all the issues had been comprehensively dealt with before the ratification of the deal by Parliament of Ghana.

“After bastardization of people, allegations upon allegations and you end up with what can be described as a paper tiger.

Clearly, this is complete waste of the country's resources,” Mr. Opare-Ansah, who is also the Member of Parliament for Suhum in the Eastern Region and Minority Chief Whip, remarked in an interview with DAILY GUIDE on Wednesday, virtually tearing the Committee's report into shreds.

Vodafone had indicated its readiness to cooperate with government.

Vodafone said it conducted its affairs to the highest ethical standards of corporate behaviour and the company had applied these standards to all its dealings in Ghana, and would continue to do so.

Issuing a White Paper on the report Tuesday evening, Government said it had after “careful review of the findings, accepted the recommendation of the Committee to re-engage with the management of Vodafone International and ensure that there is compliance with the country's laws”.

However, in examining the recommendation, the former Deputy Communications Minister fired the Atta Mills Administration, saying “it is unfortunate that government will allow itself to be guided by people who call themselves experts”.

The Committee was set up in furtherance of a manifesto pledge by the ruling NDC to review the sale of the 70 percent of GT to Vodafone International for $900 million by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Administration under a sale and purchase agreement (SPA).

Also describing the government's White Paper as ambiguous, Mr. Opare-Ansah said it was difficult to understand the context in which government was going to re-engage the management of the Vodafone, especially when it unequivocally stated it was not abrogating the contract.

He said there was nothing new or definitive in the report, on what government intended to do or hoped to achieve, indicating that by government's action, Ghana was being portrayed in “international business cycles as a joker and the country has become a laughing-stock to the international community”.

“People are laughing at us and it is not good for the country's image in terms of investment”, Hon. Opare-Ansah indicated, saying Government could do better by channeling the nation's scarce resources into more profitable ventures for the benefit of future generations rather than engaging in issues that had been dealt with.

“This is a contract that was negotiated, agreed and ratified by Parliament of Ghana. So nobody outside of Parliament can do anything about it,” Hon. Opare-Ansah pointed out.

He contended that Vodafone purchased the 70 percent of GT, including the National Fibre Optic Backbone which government indicated it would review based on an agreed SPA approved by Parliament.

On the claim that the previous administration did not sell the 70 percent shares for the $900 million quoted, Hon. Opare-Ansah stated, “We sold GT for $900m and I challenge the Bank of Ghana to come out and deny that Ghana government received $900m the day after closure of transaction. If we received anything less, let them say it”.

He did not see how anybody could have gotten anymore money from the Vodafone deal at the time.

Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament yesterday held a press conference and reacted to the Inter-Ministerial Committee report and Government's White Paper on the Vodafone deal, saying the ruling NDC, which has short-changed Ghanaians in previous Telecom transactions, is now unnecessarily “spluttering mud when there is not any reasonable cause to do so”.

Minority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, pointed out that the previous administration divested part of GT to Vodafone in the best interest of Ghanaians and welcomed any investigation on the deal.    

On the Committee's recommendation that government should review the privatisation process of GT from the tenure of Norwegian Telenor Management under NPP administration, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said government was being conveniently selective in the process.

He quizzed why the committee reviewing the whole privatization process did not begin from 1996, noting that the former NDC Administration, under ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, had divested at least 60 percent of GT shares to Telecom Malaysia between 1996 and 2000.

He recounted that NDC “took $50m from Telecom Malaysia in return for an unspecified percentage of shares.

We also note that the Telecom Malaysia, 30% minority shareholder, was granted majority seats on the GT board while Government of Ghana, with 70% majority shareholding, had a minority on the board”.

The Minority Leader further recalled that the first sale of 30 percent of GT in 1996 to Telecom Malaysia never came to parliament; nor was it subjected to any public disclosure and debate, pointing out that this was only brought up after NPP members and other minority parties raised the issue when they first entered Parliament in 1997.  

“We dare Professor Mills' Administration to go back to the Sale and Purchase Agreement of GT to Telecom Malaysia,” Minority demanded.

The Minority Leader said claims by the committee of Executive interference, with ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor being the one who agreed on the transaction price and that this was irregular, was laughable.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we find this conclusion very strange, preposterous, and absurd…it is important to state categorically that President Kufuor did not solely decide on the price, on his own technical and legal assumptions.”

On the matter of decoupling the Telecom University from the rest of Vodafone GT operations, he said the SPA had already taken care of this because it was never part of the valuation of GT from the very beginning.

“We note a news item that the British Serious Fraud Office may be interested in investigating the Vodafone GT transaction. We welcome it wholeheartedly,” the Minority Leader added.

By Awudu Mahama