Once in a while you find a needle in the interweb haystack of news, information, misinformation and comment. Recently talkRA has been highlighting the significance of government moves to ‘assure’ telco revenues (and hence taxes), particularly in countries like Ghana. For a balanced, authoritative and readable account of the legal and reputation fight taking place between Ghanaian telcos and its regulators, please read this article by Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona of GhanaWeb.
The article serves as a case study for all the issues, as would be relevant to any country, as well as detailing how and why Ghanaian telcos and private citizens are resisting the regulator’s attempts to implement automated monitoring of international gateway switches. Kudos to the author for not just repeating public statements, but for also doing solid research. The article discusses the background of the regulator’s preferred suppliers, and raises important questions about transparency, liability and corporate ethics. Anyone wanting a briefing on the risk factors relating to government intervention into revenue assurance should read the article.