WE WANT VODAFONE DEAL - GT WORKERS (Front page) 08-08-08

Story: Kofi Yeboah
CONCERNED workers of Ghana Telecom (GT) say there cannot be a better time for the GT-Vodafone deal than now because the company cannot survive the next six months on its own.
They cautioned that all the 4,200 workers of the company risked losing their jobs, if the deal failed, considering the current precarious financial situation of the company.
According to the workers, apart from losing the bulk of its clientele, such as Nestle Ghana Limited, GT did not have the capacity to withstand the current competition in the mobile telecommunication industry.
“GT cannot survive the competition, if the Vodafone deal fails. We believe Vodafone has the international clout in the telecommunication industry, which GT can leverage on when it comes to international transactions and compete effectively with MTN, Zain, Glo, Tigo and Kasapa, which are all multinationals”, the Concerned Staff of Ghana Telecom said in a press release yesterday.
The statement was jointly signed by Messrs William Agyei, Chief Manager (Onetouch) and Henry Whyte, Head of Revenue Assurance and Fraud (GT), on behalf of what they claimed was a group of about 95 per cent of junior and senior members of staff of GT.
Two members of the group, Messrs William Agyei and Paul Meenu, walked to the offices of the Daily Graphic yesterday to clarify what they considered to be misinformation in the ongoing debate over the GT-Vodafone deal and to present what they said were the real facts on the current situation in the company.
The decision by the government to sell 70 per cent shares of GT to Vodafone for a $900-million capital injection has generated intense debate over the past few weeks.
Whereas the management and some workers of GT, as well as economists like Mr Kwame Pianim, have given their blessing to the deal, groups like the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the Convention People’s Party (CPP), the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the Committee for Joint Action (CJA) have been in the forefront of opposition to the deal.
Joining the debate, the concerned workers said their support for the GT-Vodafone deal was based on sound reasons, including the limited expansion of GT’s network due to lack of capital as compared to competitors in the industry, which were rolling out massively across the country.
Another reason was that the quality of service provided by Onetouch for its customers was not up to the standards, according to the last rating by the National Communications Authority (NCA).
Furthermore, GT’s current billing and switching systems were inefficient, leading to serious revenue leakages, while revenue from Onetouch’s international roaming service was declining due to tariff steering deals by other competitors to offer higher volumes of traffic and cheaper prices.
“It is important to note that the survival of GT goes beyond just the capital, as it is being speculated by a section of the public. The current dynamics of the telecommunications business world-wide and particularly in Ghana, make it almost a mandatory requirement for any telecom operator who wants to survive in the industry in Ghana to belong to an international group due to the advantages associated with such partnerships,” the concerned workers submitted.
They indicated that whereas competitors in the industry were building fibre optic networks and planning to launch next generation services such as 3G, a technology that would help offer high speed and quality data services to customers, by the end of this year, GT did not have the financial capacity to invest in such technology, and that would have severe consequence on the company’s broadband data services.
The workers said contrary to public perception that Vodafone did not have experience in fibre optics and fixed line services, their checks had proved otherwise, pointing out that Vodafone had 10 million broadband customers across 13 countries served through its fibre optics networks and wholesale agreements with other providers.
Furthermore, they indicated, Vodafone owned and managed fixed line voice and data networks in Germany, Italy, Spain, Egypt and New Zealand.
The concerned workers were convinced that a strategic partnership with Vodafone would help upgrade the equipment and working conditions of the company, as well as the skills of the staff, adding that their support for the deal was because “Vodafone has what GT is looking for in a partner”.
Commenting on assertions made by a former Director-General of GT, Mr Ebo Aggrey-Mensah, against the deal, Messrs Agyei and Meenu said the remarks made by their former boss exposed his lack of information about the prevailing situation at the company.
They said Mr Aggrey-Mensah, who led the transition from the Post and Telecommunication (P&T) Corporation to GT, could have turned the fortunes of the company for the better, if he had taken advantage of the opportunity to be the first company to launch a mobile telecommunication service in the country.
Messrs Agyei and Meenu said GT was the biggest player in the industry at the time Mr Aggrey-Mensah was in charge of the company, but he failed to take advantage of it and that made the company to lose the “first mover advantage” — a business strategy that gives the first company to launch a service and the advantage to enjoy the largest share of the market for a long time.
Reacting to another comment made by the chairman of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Mr David Korley Clottey, against the deal, the two concerned workers claimed the union chairman did not consult the workers before making the comment.
“The position they took does not reflect the views of majority of workers. And if anybody doubts that, they should call a durbar of GT workers to throw the question to them,” they submitted.