Government Clarifies StarTimes Deal

The government says the commencement of the StarTimes' '300 village satellite TV project' has no bearing on the development of a Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform for Ghana.

It has also noted that the tax waivers granted StarTimes are “only for the specific equipment, devices/terminals or this satellite TV project.”

“We notice that some commentators and media reports have confused the two projects and ended up concluding that the ministry has handed over the DTT project to a Chinese company StarTimes to operate. The reports further suggest that StarTimes has been granted tax waivers for the purpose and is to utilize the 300 community TV project to advance that enterprise.”

“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state that this project has no correlation or link to the DTT project currently underway,” a statement from the Communications Ministry said.

The bigger controversy involving Startimes has seen the Ghana Independent Broadcasters (GIBA) claim that the government planned to allow the Chinese company to take over the DTT project.

But these fears were refuted by the government .

In this latest release, the government has again said: “the selection of a contract and financing options for any aspect of the project should not be interpreted as an intention to hand over the ownership and management of the platform to any third party.”

The Ministry of Communications will on September 26 launch the commencement of the nationwide '300 village satellite TV project'.

The ceremony will be held at Akweibu Basic School in Dansoman, the first beneficiary village in the Greater Accra Region.

The project is in line with the government of Ghana's commitment to bridging the digital divide between the rural and urban areas, the '300 village satellite TV project' is expected to benefit 6,000 households drawn from 300 villages nationwide.

StarTimes involvement in Ghana
The government first signed a $95 million deal with the StarTimes to supply and install the Digital Terrestrial Television network platform for Ghana in 2012.

But the contract with Startimes was later abrogated over the failure of the company to secure the necessary funding from the China Exim Bank to execute the project.

The government then awarded the digital migration contract to K-Net , a Ghanaian-owned company.

As K-Net worked on the project, StarTimes sued the government of Ghana claiming an unfair abrogation of their contract with the State.

The Ningo Prampram MP, Sam George, claimed that the Government of Ghana willingly walked out of the case which it was set to win at the international court over fears of not being able to access a $19 billion loan facility from China for the country's Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) infrastructure.

An Accra court in 2015 first threw the StarTimes case out of court compelling the firm to seek relief at the International Court.

The Mahama government set September 2017 as its target for the migration onto the DTT platform but the current Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has said Ghana is still not ready.

She then shifted the deadline for the migration from analog to digital broadcasting to 2018.

According to her, the project implementation process faced some challenges, hence the change in date.