NCA Faults Tigo

By Esther Awuah

THE NATIONAL Communications Authority (NCA) has challenged Millicom Ghana Limited, operators of Tigo network, for publishing a report contrary to what the former has carried as to network rankings.
In its 2011 report, Tigo maintained that it was still the second leading operator in Ghana despite an earlier report by NCA that Vodafone Ghana was the second leading network.
According to the regulator (NCA), it was the only authority mandated to report on the telecoms industry in the country. Per its 2011 report therefore, Vodafone finished the year as second leading operator with 4.2 million subscribers, representing 20.2 percent market share while Tigo came third with 3.9 million subscribers, representing 18.53 percent of the market share.
NCA also noted in its full year subscriber base report that the total mobile penetration for year ending 2011 was 21.2 million.
However, according to Tigo’s annual report, published on myjoyonline.com, it closed the year with 3.5million subscribers, and not 3.9 million which represented 21.3 percent of the market share.
Tigo’s report also stated that mobile penetration in Ghana was 16.53 million as opposed to the 21.2 million stated by the NCA.
Per Tigo’s report, its 3.5 million subscriber base was 21.3 percent of 16.53 million subscribers which made it the second largest among five operators in Ghana.
A source at NCA, in an interview with this paper, said Tigo could not claim to be the second leading operator because the NCA received monthly reports from the telecom operators in Ghana. Based on these reports, the regulator is able to determine the number of subscribers that each operator has.
The source, who spoke on behalf of NCA, stated that “the authority’s report, among other things, includes the number of active subscribers and the number of churned out registered subscribers.”
The source noted that MTN, the leading operator in the country, had over 10.2 million subscribers which was a well-documented fact; therefore Tigo’s claim of a total subscriber base of 16.53 million was shocking.
According to the report, “Millicom reports to NCA subscribers up to 90 days of activity, according to NCA policy but internally, we report to headquarters up to 60 days of no activity.”
Explaining the foregoing, a highly-placed official at Tigo explained that figures in Tigo’s annual report were based on how many Tigo subscribers were active within the last 60 days up to December 31, 2011, adding that that was different from how many subscribers were active within the last 90 days.
The official further explained that “within 60 days, every subscriber from any other network that makes a call or sends an SMS to a Tigo number, even for once, is captured as an active subscriber for that network. And when we put those figures plus our own subscribers together, we determine the mobile penetration”.
This, according to the NCA official, was not practicable, as an operator could not determine the number of active calls or number of SMS from another operator.

Driver Screws Man's Eye

By Esther Awuah

A road rage between two drivers on the Kaneshie-Mallam Highway in Accra has led to a partial blindness of one of the drivers.
A ‘trotro’ driver, David Asiedu, plying Accra-Twifo Praso route, allegedly stabbed Opoku Darko, another driver, in the eye, over the right of way on the busy Kaneshie-Mallam road on Tuesday, November 22, 2011, damaging one of his eyes in the process.
David has been remanded into police custody by an Accra Circuit court presided over by Judge Doris Bempong when he appeared before the court last Thursday.
The court refused to grant the accused person bail and asked him to reappear on December 21, 2011.
Narrating the incident to DAILY GUIDE, Opoku Darko said he was on his way from Accra to Kasoa on November 22, around 8pm, when upon reaching Odorkor Tipper, a 207 Benz bus was trying to change its lane into his.
He said the 207 bus, driven by the suspect David Aseidu, could not successfully change its lane, thereby hitting the side mirror of his Kia mini truck.
Opoku said when they both got down to assess the extent of damage, Aseidu, without any provocation, pierced his left eye with a screw driver, and ran away, abandoning his vehicle.
According to Opoku, he bled profusely.
Opoku added that “with the help of some passengers in my car, we reported the case to the Odorkor Police who gave me a medical form to take to the hospital, while they headed for the accident scene.
“I was later told the driver absconded from the scene while I was being taken to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for surgery on my eye.”
He stated that Aseidu, the following day, reported himself to the police and was arrested.
He was later granted bail and processed for court last Thursday.
However, when DAILY GUIDE contacted Aseidu, he denied piercing Opoku’s eye with a screw driver, saying he rather punched him with his fist.
It is not likely that Opoku’s sight can be recovered, according to doctor’s report

Fake Nokia Importers Lose Out

By Esther Awuah

Importers and retailers of fake Nokia phones will from next year fail to reap the benefit of their nefarious business.
This is because the world’s leading mobile phone manufacturer is embarking on a massive sensitization programme to educate Nokia users on the dangers of using fake mobile phones.
The company explained that it wants users to know the health and economic implications of using fake phones.
Ludovic Falcou, Nokia Country Manager in charge of Ghana and Senegal, disclosed this at “Nokia Media Meet and Greet” event held in Accra under the theme: “The dangers of counterfeit Devices.”
Mr. Falcou noted “fake mobile devices are manufactured from substandard component containing dangerous chemicals (lead & mercury) and do not follow safety standards.”
He stated that economically fake phones negatively impact the Ghanaian economy.
“Importers of fake mobile devices typically avoid payment of taxes and levies thus creating huge income losses for the government,” he added.
Mr. Falcou indicated that the development needs to be critically looked at since it is capable of discouraging foreign direct investment as international companies are likely to direct their investment elsewhere.
He advised people to look out for the 12 month Nokia warranty logo on the box when purchasing Nokia phones.
“Beyond this, all genuine Nokia devices purchased in Ghana are covered by a one-year warranty. The Nokia warranty starts from the date of purchase and it guarantees the user of repair at no cost and even replacement in the event of malfunction,” the Nokia boss announced.
He cautioned Nokia users to take full advantage of the numerous applications available on Nokia store including Music, videos, games and navigation, which is only available on genuine Nokia devices.
Osagie Ogunbor, Head of Communications Nokia West Africa, said the use of fake mobile phones is a global problem because most of the users cannot identify genuine ones.
He said Nokia Ghana is going to embark on massive advertising and media campaigns to sensitize Ghanaians on the need to purchase genuine phones.
Nokia is the world’s number one manufacturer of mobile devices in terms of market share.
Beyond its leadership status as a manufacturer of devices, Nokia is fast becoming a leading solutions provider in the converging Internet and communications industries providing internet services that enable users to experience media, messaging, maps and games.

Welcome to the New Blog

Hi all, i know for most of you this is the first time you will be reading my blog. It's mainly for the stories i write in the Daily Guide and Business Guide newspapers, but i want to start writing about my personal experiences and daily activities too. So i hope you enjoy it.

Let me know if you have any suggestions and comments too. You can also invite your friends to follow.

Thanx

Signed: Kista

The Agony Of Spare Parts Dealers

Small & Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) contribute a great deal to the country’s national development through the manufacture of goods of value and provision of services to both consumers and other enterprises.

This encompasses the provision of products and services to foreign clients, thereby contributing to the overall export performance of the country.

Over the years, several programmes have been developed to support SMEs, but much as these programmes have benefited entrepreneurs in this sector, adequate support structures have not been put in place to help sustain those programmes.

It must however be noted that economists are gradually recognizing the importance of SMEs in the country’s development.

SMEs are often viewed as playing a critical role in encouraging entrepreneurship, generating employment and reducing poverty.

According to the World Bank, in high-income countries about 57 percent of employment and 51 percent of GDP are generated from the SME sector. While in a low-income country, only 16 percent and 18 percent respectively are generated by SMEs.

A World Bank report in 2000 that explored the importance of SMEs in developing countries also noted that “Smaller businesses are the foundation of the emerging private sector in developing countries and governments should help them to survive and thrive.”

Most SMEs are mostly engaged in retailing, trading, and manufacturing. Retailing is mostly found in urban regions while manufacturing can be found in either rural or urban centres.

The automotive spare parts industry in the country is a major one and can be found in the retailing category.

In the past few years, the industry has expanded enormously and created jobs at the same time. Entrepreneurs in this vast industry deal in spare parts components such as batteries and engines, among others.

Like other SMEs in Ghana who face several social and economic barriers that hamper their growth, entrepreneurs in the spare parts industry face many challenges.

Clement Boateng aka Caboat, Spokesman for the Abossey Okai Spare Parts Dealers Association, said the industry was very lucrative, but recent happenings like the fast depreciation of the cedi against major currencies like the dollar had affected the members.
He explained that Ghana does not manufacture spare parts, hence they have to be imported from Western and Asian countries.

“As a result, if the dollar rates keep increasing then the cost of clearing the goods also rises, and this is passed on to the customers,” he stressed.

“And if our customers cannot afford the products, they (the spare parts dealers) end up making loses.

Mr. Boateng, who is also the Director of Caboat Agency, dealers in general vehicular parts, said apart from the constant appreciation of the dollar against the cedi, another challenge they face is the high charges and import duties they pay at the ports.

“The rates and charges we pay at the port is very worrying.” He produced a receipt of charges of a container of spare parts that had been cleared at the port.

The cost of import duty was GH ¢1,431.08 and included other charges such as import special tax, Import Vat, ECOWAS levy, Network charges, Import NHIL among others. And all these totaled GH ¢4,350.07.

He said these exorbitant charges are really affecting the industry and stressed that if this is not checked it could easily collapse the industry, which is serving as a hub for all kinds of spare part products in the country.

He appealed to the government to take a look at these charges and review them downwards. “If not many of us in the spare parts industry may have to quite.”

Another problem, he stated, was the issue of ‘goro boys’ who have invaded the Abossey Okai Spare parts market.

He said the ‘goro boys’ pretend to be spare-parts dealers and sell fake products to unsuspecting customers.

He therefore cautioned customers to desist from buying from these boys because if there’s a defect in the product, they may not be able to locate them, explaining that ‘goro boys’ are not members of the association and they move from one location to the other.

The Abossey Okai Spare Parts Dealers Association is the umbrella Association, which includes the Japan Importers Association and Table Top Users Association.

According to Mr. Boateng, all these groups are represented on the main association, and added that the Abossey Okai market accommodates over 3,000 shops.

Mr. Boateng said the association is very vibrant and would continue to project the interests of its members.

He entreated government to support SMEs in various sectors.

“By doing this, entrepreneurs will be encouraged to explore other business opportunities, thereby improving the economic development of the nation.”

Earlier this year, Daniel Aggrey, the Second Vice President of the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA) stated that the cost of doing business in the country was increasingly becoming high.

He attributed this to the “high taxes, levies, cumbersome processes and procedures of clearing cargo, unnecessary charges, theft among others, which according to him, do not augur well for the growth and development of the private sector which has been touted as the engine of growth of the country.

At a forum organized by Ghana Shippers’ Authority (GSA), Mr. Aggrey said if port officials do not desist from such acts, the country would loose a lot in terms of business image and revenue generation.

He reiterated that as a result of the problems encountered at the ports, neighbouring landlocked countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger who heavily patronize Ghana’s ports were loosing interest in the country’s ports.

He also cautioned that “we should not loose sight of the fact that our neighbouring countries like Togo, Benin and Cote d’Ivoire whose clearing systems seem better than ours may easily overtake us.”

State agencies and private organizations who owe it a duty to develop the sector must come out with sustainable programmes.

By Esther Awuah

Fire Outbreak At Korle-Bu

Daily Guide

By Esther Awuah

A FIRE outbreak occurred on Tuesday night at the Hearing Assessment Centre, also known as the Audiology centre of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

This comes in the wake of recent fire outbreaks that have hit the country over the past few weeks.

Equipment destroyed at the centre included audiometers and other hearing accessories.

Dr. Emmanuel Dornu Kitcher, Head of the Unit told Daily Guide that at about 6pm that day, a security man on duty detected smoke emerging from the centre which had closed for the day.

He said because there were no fire extinguishers at the centre, the security had a tough time putting out the fire, but the timely arrival of the Regional Fire Service team helped salvage the situation.

He said the fire service and police are yet to investigate and determine the cause of the accident but noted that it might have been caused by an electrical failure due to recent power fluctuations the centre has been experiencing.

The estimated cost and extent of damage is not immediately known but at the time of Daily Guide’s visit the Major of Accra, Dr. Alfred Vanderpuije, was at the scene to assess the situation.

The centre was opened in 2005 and is the second of its kind in the country besides that of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi.

According to Dr. Kitcher, the centre which was very well resourced with state-of-the-art equipment is used to care for patients with hearing disabilities from infants to adults.

He appealed to NGOs and philanthropists to come to the aid of the hospital.

59 Suspects Arrested At Soldier Bar

Daily Guide

By Esther Awuah

59 suspected criminals and prostitutes were on Wednesday, April 22, 2009, arrested at the infamous soldier bar at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle.

The suspects, who were made up of 30 males and 29 females including a nursing mother were arrested at their various hid out by a combined team from the Police Headquarters and the Nima Police at about 11 pm.

Briefing newsmen the Nima Divisional Police Commander, ACP Angwubutoge Awuni said they had received numerous complaints of attacks on workers who use the area around the soldier bar after work.

He explained that the reports from the workers suggested that anytime they used the route around 8pm they were attacked at knife point to hand over their possessions.

He stated that as a result the combined team stormed the area and arrested the suspects.

He indicated that the suspects would be screened and thereafter processed for court.

He called for a continuous collaboration from the general public, to help the police fight crime. Since they (the police) were poised the make the country a safe place to live.

Invest In Public Toilets - Veep

Daily Guide

By Esther Awuah

The Vice President, John Mahama has called on the private sector to invest heavily in the construction and maintenance of public toilets and other waste disposal points.

He said this among other things would harness a significant amount of liquid waste which can be treated and turned into organic product to increase the output of the ‘Going Green’ Project (GPP) which was recently launched.

GPP is to address the liquid waste problems associated with environmental sanitation.

The Vice President made this known at the First National Environmental Sanitation Forum held in Accra, which was organized by the National Coalition of NGOs in Waste Management and the Ministry of Environment Science and Technology.

It was sponsored by the World Bank Ghana Office as well as the Environmental Service Providers Association.

The forum was to afford stakeholders the opportunity to share ideas and demonstrate their commitment to greening and improving waste management practices in the country.

It is also in line with the current governments ‘100 Days’ Sanitation and Ghana Going Green (GGG) Agenda.

The Vice President noted that the rate at which plastic waste is being generated in the country is as a result of the over usage of plastic bags.

“You are all aware of the change in food vending practices where food wrapping and packaging has shifted from biodegradable materials like leaves, to the use of plastic bags, resulting in what I would term as the ‘Plastic Menace’”.

He said despite these challenges, various intervention strategies have been undertaken by previous Governments, Civil Society Organizations as well as Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies.

These interventions he said are environmental education, clean-up campaigns, infrastructural development, waste dumping sites, provision of waste bins at vantage points and the mobilization of financial and human capital to address waste management issues.

He however indicated that some of these interventions and policies failed because of lack of political will by previous governments, misplaced priorities, lack of financing opportunities and appropriate technology for renewable energy resource development as well as unrealistic implementation strategies at the local community level.

He noted that “equally important root causes of the poor sanitation in our cities and villages are the lack of community involvement and ownership of the intervention strategies, as well as inadequate education and awareness creation. I believe if these issues were given the necessary attention, the story would have been told differently today.”

He said any programme that would emanate from the forum aimed at addressing the waste management challenges in the country, should include decentralized strategies, since it would “empower local communities to seriously tackle their sanitation problems by giving them ownership of the intervention facilities.”

The Minister for Environment Science and Technology said the fast growing urban populations are presently exerting immense pressure on the natural resources of the country, as well as creating waste management problems in major towns and cities.

The environmental problems associated with this trend of growth she said have direct bearing on human health.

She however stated that urban growth cannot be avoided as long as cities are viewed as engines of growth contributing significantly to the overall economic growth of the country.

“To effectively tackle these problems, we must change our present strategies of solve the problems as they come and adopt a long term multi-pronged holistic planning approach”, she added.

She therefore called on the Architectural and Engineering Services Limited (AES), the Department of Urban Toads and the District Assemblies to consider in the future, designing roads with covered gutters and as much as possible take measures to cover all open gutters along the streets in the major cities.

There were statements of commitment from various Ministries, Security Agencies, Traditional Authorities, Religious Bodies and other stakeholders who pledged their commitment to seeing a clean Ghana within the first 100 days of the NDC administration.

Minister Wads Into Illegal Mounting of Mast

Daily Guide

By Esther Awuah

THE MINISTRY of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) says its investigations have revealed that some communication network operators in the country have mounted mast without the necessary permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

According to the Ministry, this has resulted in numerous complaints concerning potential public health risks and safety of such installations particularly those located in residential areas.

A statement from the Ministry has therefore directed all communication network operators in the country to obtain the necessary environmental permit for all proposed mast sites before installation.

“This requires that each investor completes an Environmental Assessment Registration form and submit to the EPA with the following attachments; site plan duly signed by Licensed Surveyor, Block Plan Evidence of Neighbourhood Consultation; Lease Agreement.

The Ministry further advised the companies to avoid locating their mast in areas which are not suitable, particularly densely populated residential areas to avert possible accidents to life and property.

It also reminded all “investors in communication in the country that under section 29 of the Environmental Assessment Registration 1999, LI 1652, all such developments are to be registered and environmental permits obtained before construction commences.”

Non-compliance of this regulation it emphasized, is an offence which may evoke the necessary sanctions which includes summary conviction to a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both.