GT Should Take Over Vodafone

I would like to make a modest proposal: GT should take over Vodafone, and not the other way round.

Given the heat that the proposed sale of 70 per cent of Ghana Government shares in GT to Vodafone has generated in the country, my modest proposal may strike some as utterly preposterous if not bearing a distinct whiff of insanity.

Let me state at the outset that I am of the school that thinks the Government should sell its majority shares to Vodafone and do so promptly.

I am not overly sentimental about Ghana Telecom, given the long years of under investment that it has suffered.

And yet, I do not think that previous governments are entirely to blame for GT's current lack of competitive edge in the cell phone industry that has taken root in Ghana over the past 10 or so years.

The reasons for its relatively weak position are a little bit more complicated.

No previous government could have anticipated the rapidity of changes that were to take place in cell phone technology and the cell phone market here in Ghana, and in the world at large.

Apart from developments in information communication technology (ICT), the expansion of the Internet has also accounted for the speed of the telecommunications revolution.

The two are inextricably intermeshed. In 1995, there were barely 30,000 Internet sites on the World Wide Web; by 2005, these had grown to an incredible 50 million with no sign of abating.

And barely 12 months ago, no one could have anticipated what the introduction of the I-Phone was going to do to the cell phone and peripheral industries.

Taking advantage of a new technology, the I-Phone gives its users the capacity not only to make phone calls, send text messages, take photographs, surf the Internet, and play music and video files, through Global Mapping Systems (GMS) technology but they can also use their phones to get precise directions to wherever they are driving to, upload and watch full-length feature films, and also get regular weather updates from any part of the world they are interested in.

All this is delivered via a highly nifty interactive screen that can alter font size, colour, and shape (horizontal or vertical, the choice is yours) all at the touch of a few buttons.

There is currently technology that when incorporated into our cell phones, would allow us to spark our cars, control all light switches and electronic gadgets in our homes (TV, computer, microwave), and even get automatic updates about the state of groceries in the fridge before we even open it.

And that is not all: Nano engineers in the United States are researching a special fibre that can generate small amounts of electricity.

On being incorporated into ordinary clothing, the expectation is that enough electricity can be generated from this special fibre to allow the charging of a cell phone or MP3 player from our clothes directly.

In other words, you will soon be able to don a Bob Marley T-shirt, go for a quick jog around the neighbourhood and charge your cell phone from your T-shirt even as you sweat.

On pausing to catch your breath you might want to check the weather forecast for your lunchtime meeting and also send your daughter who is studying for her degree in Tokyo a quick cyber hello to tell her that you are also in with the beat and feeling very healthy.

All from that innocent looking instrument you call your cell phone. The truth of the matter is that even five years ago, very few governments could have foreseen where cell phone technology was heading to.

Even in the industrialised countries, it is Finland, South Korea and Israel that are setting the pace when it comes to phone technology and use. Finland, home of Nokia, pre-dated the UK, Italy and the rest of Europe in the sheer size of its cell phone subscriber base by at least three years.

By 1998, Finnish teenagers would go out for a burger and have lively conversations on their cell phones from across the same table.

And it is South Korea that has taken the lead in providing cell phone connectivity all through the underground transportation system in Seoul.

You can now take the tube in Seoul and have a nice little chat with your wife or husband, extolling the qualities of your various children while zooming at breakneck speed inside the belly of the earth on the way to your workplace.

The UK is yet to operationalise such a facility on the London Underground.

In Israel, you can access the Internet from any location anywhere in the country. The entire place has WiFi.

So it is possible if your car breaks down on a deserted road (all first class, by the way) to flip open your laptop and have a quick conversation on Skype, the free Internet activated web telephony service.

I have travelled far and wide, and everywhere I go, I encounter wonders of our technological world. But the wonder is not in the technology itself but in the long-term planning that makes the technology available for public use.

Note that innocent but absolutely indispensable word in the last sentence: PLANNING. As the Americans colourfully put it, if you don't open your eyes now, you will wake up dead!

The Vodafone buyout of GT should be taken as a platform for launching us into the heart of the telecommunications revolution that is taking place all around us but only a minuscule fraction of which we are benefiting from in this country.

This requires careful long-term strategy and planning. But what do I have in mind precisely?

Vodafone and ICT training

First is that, given Vodafone's global reach and technical expertise in the area of phone technology, its presence in the country should be taken as a chance not just to improve GT's competitive capacity within the cell phone industry in Ghana, but as an excellent opportunity to augment the country's overall ICT skills base at all levels.

It must not be left to the goodwill of Vodaphone to train our people. There must be a clear stipulation within the sale agreement that Vodaphone will be committed to training different levels of local expertise up to the very highest levels.

There is a precedent for this on the continent and indeed, elsewhere in the world.

South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment initiative, which requires foreign firms to hire and train historically disadvantaged minorities as a stipulated percentage of their workforce, is not merely an initiative to correct the historical inequalities of apartheid.

It is a carefully calibrated growth strategy that seeks to realise the country's full economic potential.

And I am also told by my good friend, Mr Ato Aidoo, a Planning and Operations Engineer with BG-Group International Ltd. in Kazakhstan (formerly British Gas Exploration and Development), that there is an enforceable agreement clause that makes it mandatory for the oil firm to train local personnel. 

BG-Group is a partner in a consortium called KPO b.v., made up of the BG-Group, ENI-Agip, Chevron-Texaco and Lukoil. As part of the local engagement component of the agreement between the Kazakh government and the consortium, they are required to train a clearly stipulated number of managerial, supervisory, technical, and engineering staff of Kazakh origin.

Mr Aidoo currently has six Kazakh engineers training under him as wellsite supervisors, with another 20 scheduled to be trained over the next five years.

Every year, the government sends an inspection team to evaluate the progress of the training that is taking place.

If the inspectors are for any reason dissatisfied, a stiff fine is imposed on KPO b.v. This is no ad hoc opportunism on the part of the Kazakh government.

All of it was clearly stated within the original agreement between the consortium and the State of Kazakhstan.

Translated into the GT local sale here in Ghana, what this would mean is that the Government of Ghana would require Vodafone to train top end engineers and technical staff in all aspects of ICT — Electronics, Electrical, Computer Software and Hardware, even Nano Technology if necessary.

This training would have to go beyond just training Ghanaians to work for Vodafone Ghana.

The aim would be to provide training of the highest international standard to the point where the Ghana Vodafone operation would be regarded as an exemplary model within the larger Vodafone global family.

Note that it would not be enough for Vodaphone to come in and place Ghanaians in top management positions within the local company.

 This is inescapable given the high calibre of managerial expertise that we already have in this country.

What we need is the training of technical and engineering personnel and to the very highest levels of expertise.

That way we could envisage a time when Vodafone Ghana would produce top end engineers to advise or work within the Vodafone family in Italy, or the UK, or Germany, or Australia or anywhere that Vodaphone has an operation.

ICT Technikons

The second point is that, the Vodaffone operation in the country should be placed within a much wider strategy to convert Ghana into the Bangalore of Africa. Bangalore in India is considered the absolute capital for the production of ICT engineers.

More significantly, shortly after independence the Indian Government decided to establish technikons in all the main regions of the country.

These technikons are extremely competitive and are the breeding grounds for some of the most brilliant ICT engineers the world has known.

Currently 30 per cent of Silicon Valley in California is owned by Indians born, bred, and educated in India.

It would make good sense for the Ghana Government to even “dash” Vodafone $50-$100 million of the proposed $900 million sale price of its GT shares in exchange for Vodafone's agreement to start, finance, and manage two or three technikons in the country.

These technikons would be responsible not only for training the technicians and engineers to service the rapidly growing cell phone industry in the country, but would also hopefully train computer animators, electronic sound engineers, and a wide range of ICT specialists that would help to augment our overall technological skills base and push the industry to the next level.

Many people were astounded by the effects achieved in Pixar/Disney's highly successful 2004 film, Finding Nemo which by 2007 had grossed $360 million profit in ticket and peripheral sales.

 But the magical computer animation effects of Finding Nemo were all done by human beings like us.

The question I often ask myself is: What is it that prevents us from mastering these techniques to tell our own animated Ananse stories for the education of our many brothers and sisters here and in the Diaspora?

There is an insatiable hunger for stories, yet all the most memorable stories told to our children on film do not have us in them.

A technikon that would incorporate education in computer animation of the most sophisticated sort might prepare the way for an enterprising African to finally produce something worthy of the magnificent stories we have on this great continent of ours.

But this is not all. If Vodafone is placed under a strict requirement to train top end engineers and good technikons are established to train our people, I foresee a happy moment when a Ghanaian will become the CEO of Vodafone International.

And why not? If we have managed to produce the first black, and by all accounts the most successful Secretary-General in the entire history of the United Nations, what prevents us from aiming to one day produce the CEO of Vodafone International?

It is perfectly achievable. And who knows, if we plan properly, the Ghanaian Vodafone operation may become so exemplary and powerful that one day GT might make a bid for the parent company itself.

My modest proposal will then come true. Enough of the endless arguments about whether to sell or not to sell and by how much.

As the Kikuyu of Kenya put it: “He who waits to see the whole animal ends up spearing the tail”.

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