Cutting-edge platform launched to boost telecom regulatory in Ghana
Common Platform has been officially launched by Nana Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana

Cutting-edge platform launched to boost telecom regulatory in Ghana

Global Voice Group (GVG) has announced that a Common Platform (CP), using its state-of-the-art technologies, has been officially launched by Nana Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana.

Delivered by Ghana-based firm Kelni-GVG, with the technical assistance of GVG, the mCP will be jointly used by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the National Communications Authority (NCA) to support and optimise their respective activities with respect to telecom and mobile money oversight and taxation.

In his inaugural speech to the launching, President Akufo-Addo presented the CP as ‘an essential building block for the realisation of the government’s vision of a digitised Ghana.’

For GVG’s CEO, James Claude, this perfectly defines the very nature of the project.

“The Common Platform is indeed all about digitisation,” he said.

“It aims at replacing the old paper-based ways of doing things by cutting-edge technologies of the digital age that can really increase efficiency and enforce transparency in important sectors of the economy such as telecoms and digital financial services.”

The telecom and mobile money markets of Ghana have a lot in common with those of other countries where GVG successfully implemented similar platforms over the last few years, such as Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. They are characterised by an overall lack of transparency, high vulnerabilities to important risks such as revenue leakages, tax erosion, unfair competition from Internet-based OTTs and proliferation of international grey telephony. The CP is expected to have an immediate and lasting positive impact in all these regards.

In addition to traffic measurement applications used to calculate and bill taxes, levies and regulatory fees due to the government, the CP will bring many other important benefits to all stakeholders in Ghana. Its fraud management component will enable the NCA to efficiently coordinate the fight against grey telephony that deprives both the government and the telcos of millions of dollars in international calls revenues, while compromising network security and quality of service for consumers. Overall, the CP will allow for a much more proactive and preventive approach of telecom oversight, based on real-time data, ensuring a better protection of consumers’ interests and significantly reducing the cost of non-compliance for telcos, as opposed to a punitive approach based on partial information.

“The CP is a win-win approach for both the citizens, the industry and the government,” added Claude.

“As a technology provider, we are proud to assist our Ghana-based partner Kelni-GVG and the Ghanaian authorities in taking this decisive step towards a much more transparent, secure, prosperous and compliant telecom and mobile money ecosystem in Ghana.”

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