Industry News

MTN Ghana has organised an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) training programme for girls to equip them with skills to identify and solve problems in different vocations and professions.
The programme, which was held in Accra on Friday, for girls from the ages of 10 and 15 years, was also to commemorate the “International Girls in ICT Day” 2019 on the theme: “Expand Horizons, Change Attitudes”.
Ms Ruth Badoo, the Senior Manager of MFS Operations and Service Delivery, MTN Ghana, said with regard to women who took up careers in technology, there were deficit because of paranoid around technology and women.
She said it was for this reason that MTN Ghana made girls the focus of the training to bridge the gap that existed between men and women in technology.
Traditionally, she said, women were reserved to take up challenging or difficult roles, however, things were changing because women were now developing interest in doing things that were traditionally a preserve of men.

Ms Badoo said the programme would educate girls to understand that technology was not just a career in itself, but involved everything.
“The whole idea is that technology is an enabler or a tool, and there are so many problems in this world that we need to solve, so let’s make use of the technology we have and learn to solve our daily basic problems in our society with it,” she said.
She disclosed that MTN had year-round programmes for girls, women and boys, adding that, it was necessary not to leave boys behind in the quest to equip the skills of girls in technology.
Ms Eunice Annor, the Manager of Learning and Development, MTN Ghana, advised the girls, to offer other professional courses instead of ICT and educate their parents on the importance of ICT.

She emphasised that the girls could enlighten their parents to know and appreciate the beauty of ICT, saying, it could be used to learn vocational skills even on the platforms like YouTube and asked them to develop interest, and think of how to employ ICT to develop initiatives and solve societal problems.
Ms Annor cautioned the girls to use social media networks wisely and asked them to report persons requesting for personal information from them and shun gifts from unknown persons.
During the training programme, the girls asked for explanations on why there were perceptions that women in ICT were anti-social and unable to find themselves husbands, how to develop passion for ICT and opportunities in the fields of technology.

GNA

The Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has commended Vodafone Ghana for the appointment of a Ghanaian Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to steer the affairs of the company.

Vodafone Ghana last month announced that Mrs Patricia Obo-Nai, the Director of Customer Operations and Fixed Business, would replace Ms Yolanda Cuba as Chief Executive, with effect from April 1, 2019.

A statement from the Communications Department of Vodafone Ghana explained that Ms Cuba had to return to her former role as the Chief Strategy Officer of Vodacom South Africa, after having completed her three-year assignment in Ghana.

According to the statement, Otumfuo said: “It is satisfying that we finally have a Ghanaian CEO at the helm of Vodafone Ghana. I commend you for this achievement and I’m confident that she will be given the needed support to succeed and build on the legacy of Yolanda by taking the company to greater heights”.

The statement quoted him as saying this when the management of the company paid a courtesy call on him to introduce the new CEO to him.

The team was led by Dr Kobina Quansah, the Board Chairman; Mr Gayheart Mensah, the External Affairs Director; and Mrs Ashiokai Akrong, the Human Resources Director.

Mrs Obo-Nai, according to the statement said: “I want to first of all, congratulate Nana on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his coronation. I also commend him for his unparalleled contribution and leadership in the economic and social development of this region”.

“Finally, I want to assure all our customers that we will continue to remain a leader in innovation and creativity in the industry, whilst ensuring that their technological future is exciting.”

The statement disclosed that the visit was also to update Otumfuo on the upcoming Asantehene Golf Open Championship, for which Vodafone is the headline sponsor.

“This year’s tournament, which begins on May 8, 2019, is expected to assume another dimension of prominence as it coincides with the 20th anniversary of the coronation of the great monarch,” the statement said.

The team also donated a cheque for GH¢50,000.00 for the celebration of Otumfuo’s coronation.

Source: GNA

The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) has confirmed that the challenges that customers of MTN are having with sending money from the network to others has to do with capacity issues which all stakeholders involved are working on to resolve.

This follows several complaints by customers of MTN over persistent challenges with the network for the past few months, which have prevented them from sending money to their friends, family and acquaintances on other networks.

However in an interview with Citi Business News, the Chief Executive of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse assured that his outfit is working to resolve the issue.“I would like to concur with MTN’s Eli Hene that the current situation is not a sabotage on MTN’s part. Since inception the system has been running perfectly well, however we realized that in the last month there have been a number of failures in some of the transactions emanating mainly from MTN. We’ve since started working with MTN and the other telecommunication companies to try and find out what exactly the problem is. What we have found out is that there are some minor capacity challenges which we working on,” Mr. Hesse said.

The mobile money interoperability, which is in its first year of implementation, is to allow seamless transfer of cash from one network to another.

It is also in line with the government’s digitization agenda to promote a cashlite economy.

Mr. Hesse indicated that a more permanent solution will be implemented to avert any further issues on the mobile money interoperability platform for the next fve years.

This he said should be rolled out latest by June this year.

“In order to eliminate some of the capacity constraints, over the weekend the telecommunication companies all got separate web services to ensure they all have their independent services. The network team is also doing its job with the network capacity et cetera. By May thereabout we will be migrating to our Power Nine system which will give us enough capacity for the next 5 years.”

Responding to concerns by MTN customers on the Citi Breakfast Show on April 15, 2019, the General Manager for Mobile Money Services at MTN, Eli Hini said they are focused on making the interoperability platform more convenient for their customers.

“We have not done anything on our side to make customers life uncomfortable. And we’ll never do that. Because we believe that the service helps customers enjoy our platform better, and we’ll continue to work to make the platform very convenient for our customers.”

Source: CBN

The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has organized a farewell and welcome cocktail in honour of the outgoing and incoming Chief Executives of Vodafone; Ms Yolanda Cuba and Mrs Patricia Obo-Nai respectively on 1^st April in Cantonments-Accra.

In his opening remarks, Chief Executive officer of the Chamber, Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey highlighted the importance of the gathering which recognizes and rewards colleague CEOs while creating the right ambience for stakeholders to engage together as an industry.”
Chief Executive Officer of AirtelTigo, Mitwa Kaemba Ng’ambi also described Ms. Cuba in her remarks as an authentic personality and a role model for her personally. According to Mitwa the outgoing Chief Executive was passionate and committed to her work when she was at the helm of Vodafone.

“People can be committed to and passionate about lots of things, but this by itself is not enough. Authenticity is when someone believes in what they say or acts in a way that is consistent with their beliefs and that is the characteristics of Ms. Yolanda Cuba.” She remarked.

Mr. Joe Anokye, Director General of the National Communications Authority in a speech lauded Ms. Cuba for her tremendous work at Vodafone especially leading her team to deploy 4G services to their customers. He described the move as a great accomplishment and a legacy that she’s leaving behind for the incoming CEO of Vodafone Ghana.
Mr. Anokye also described Ms. Yolanda Cuba as a transformational leader and an accomplished business leader, who is widely regarded across the African continent. He disclosed that owing to her remarkable performance, commitment and passion to her work and the telecommunications industry, Ms. Cuba has inspired a lot of young girls who are aspiring to be like her.

Ms. Yolanda Cuba in her acceptance speech recounted her journey with the Chamber and her competitors in pursuing policy and regulations that always sought to make the industry thrive and to offer world-class telecommunications services to Ghanaians.

The Vice Chair of the Parliament Select Committee on Communications and MP for Sekondi Constituency, Western Region, Hon. Andrew Kofi Egyapa Mercer in his remarks pledged the Committee’s willingness and preparedness to collaborate and strengthen existing relationship with the industry to develop policies that will inure to the benefit of all.

Incoming CEO of Vodafone, Mrs Patricia Obo- Nai in her acceptance speech, pledged to continue and build upon the legacy of Ms. Cuba, working with the Chamber and the mobile industry to ensure business sustainability and more improved customer experience.

About Yolanda Cuba
Yolanda joined Vodafone Ghana as Chief Executive Officer in June 2016 from Vodacom Group in South Africa, where she was the Director of Strategy and Mergers & Acquisitions covering five markets – South Africa, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Lesotho. She previously served as Executive Director of Strategy and Business Support at the South

About Patricia Obo-Nai
An Engineer by profession, she comes into her new role with 22 years of experience in Information Technology (IT) and Telecommunications. In addition, she has extensive commercial experience in the telecommunications industry.
Until her appointment, Patricia was the Director of Fixed Business and Customer Operations of Vodafone Ghana.

Source: Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications

Mr. Romeo Bugyei, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of IT Consortium Limited, has called for closer collaboration between government, regulatory bodies and FinTechs to create awareness on the pension schemes for the informal sector.

He said in order to achieve successful financial inclusion, FinTech companies must be supported to enable them efficiently deliver Digital Financial Services (DFS) to Ghanaians.

A statement issued in Accra quoted Mr Bugyei as making the call at a stakeholder forum co-hosted by the Ghana Technology Chamber and the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications.

The event was support by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs of Switzerland on the theme: “New DFS Products and how they are being enabled.”

“FinTech companies run recurrent costs regardless of whether a transaction goes through or not. We need to push informal pensions whether it is to a farmer, house help or market woman and that makes it difficult,” he said.

He said when the National Pensions Act (2008) was put together, there was no allocation made for other channels that support the work of custodians and fund managers like the Telcos and FinTechs, hence, making it difficult for them to make meaningful revenue to support their operations.

“If the regulator can come in with a specific fee for our channels, it will help a lot,” he added.

He said last year, IT Consortium, in collaboration with MTN Ghana and United Pensions Trustees introduced ‘My Own Pension’, a Mobile Money driven pensions platform, the first of its kind in Ghana and Africa.

The MOP is a three-tier pension scheme tailored to resolve the problem of financial insecurity among pensioners aimed at providing Ghanaians, especially, those in the informal sector, a simple and convenient way to save and make voluntary pension contributions.

Mr. Bugyei said although his organization has gotten very little out of its operations in the digital pensions space, they were determined to develop more products that promote financial inclusion, while working closely with other stakeholders within the sector.

He advised operators within the DFS space to seek the backing of regulators of the industry, when designing products and services for public use.

The CEO said this would serve as an assurance to end-users that their finances and other investments were secure following the recent financial sector troubles in the country, which have affected public trust.

Mr. Kenneth Ashigbey, the CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, said the chamber was keen on the development of the DFS sector and stressed on the need for financial technology businesses to stop being passive consumers of legislation but they should be able to challenge portions of the Payments Systems and Settlement Bill they feel were not right.

The Bill, which has been passed by Parliament and yet to receive presidential assent is expected to regulate electronic payments and control financial institutions which offer electronic payment services in the country.

Mr Kwame Oppong, Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP, emphasized the call by Mr Ashigbey for FinTech companies to be more actively involved in shaping legislation.

“As long as the industry continues to collaborate, understand the issues and make a determined effort to engage our government to make sure that the change we need happens, we will be in a good place,” he added.

He said even if progress was slow, “we will eventually get it and slowly with time, we will begin to take control of what needs to happen.”

GNA

The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications (GCT) in partnership with the GSMA, National Communications Authority and the Bureau of National Communications is organizing a two-day training workshop on Disaster Response and Humanitarian Crises Management starting on Thursday 28th March 2019 at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra.

This initiative is part of a wider effort to improve coordination between mobile operators, regulatory authorities, government agencies and the humanitarian community to not just prepare to respond to disasters but leverage mobile technology as well as other critical technological tools to plan, predict, respond effectively or mitigate completely the effect of potential disasters.

Chief Executive of the Chamber, Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey called for simulations among all stakeholders within the disaster management ecosystem to leverage ICT and telecommunications services to mitigate disasters and humanitarian crises facing our country.

“There’s a need to collaborate with our little pockets of excellence and experience to mitigate and respond effectively to disasters and humanitarian crises that may arise”. He said

Over the last few months, there has been several earth tremor counts, with scientists predicting an imminent earthquake with its associated challenges.

Mr. Prince Ofosu Sefah, a Deputy Director General Operations at the National Communications Authority, also underscored the important role ICT and telecommunications plays in the reduction, mitigation and recovery phase of disasters.

He also revealed government’s plan to position ICT and telecommunications at the heart of Ghana’s Emergency Response Operations to alleviate disasters.

The workshop also seeks to propose around the world techniques being deployed by countries similar to Ghana and allow our nation to adopt flexible approaches to policy during emergencies to positively impact response efforts.

The training workshop is a course certified by the United Kingdom Telecommunications Academy, which is an Internationally recognized center of excellence in the provision of ICT education globally.

Key Institutions participating in this workshop are from the Prisons Service, Immigration Service, Police Service, Armed Forces, Fire Service, Meteorological Service, National Security, Bureau of National Investigation, Information Services Department, Ambulance Service, Food & Drugs Authority, Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications, Mobile Network Operators, Tower Infrastructure Companies and others.

Source: Chamber News Desk

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, Kenneth Ashigbey says more education is needed to reduce the menace of Cyber Crime in the country.

Mr. Ashigbey is of the view that intensifying education on cybercrime is crucial in order to reduce the number of cases recorded.

As at 2017, Ghana lost 97 million dollars to cybercrime.

Delivering a speech at the launch of the Jumia Ghana Mobile Report, Mr Ashigbey said Ghanaians must be more abreast with technology to be able to tackle cyber fraud cases in the country.

“There is a cyber-security policy that is going to parliament that is trying to look at this but you bear me out that, we have been doing that for a while, the criminals have also been at it and they are constantly at the front and so the same way ethical hackers, we need to get ethical scammers so that we can understand the thinking and the mentality of the scammers. The cyberspace is deadly opportunities like this are great for us to educate our people” he stressed.

Meanwhile the Managing Director of Jumia Ghana, Ore Odusanya said his outfit will keep partnering with key mobile brands to provide a bigger and better mobile industry in Ghana.

Mr Odusanya said Ghana’s mobile sector is poised for continuous growth in 2019 especially as there have been increased investments in the sector and the growth in data and mobile money services in the country.

“For us we are trying to ensure that we keep trying to partner with mobile brands, the device makers to make sure that Ghana has a strategy for Africa” he stated.

Source: Ghanaweb.com

Mr Ken Ashigbey, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, has said network operators in 2018 paid a total of GH¢1.94 billion tax and a direct capital expenditure of over GH¢276 million to the state.

He explained that the mobile industry contributed close to nine percent of Ghana’s total revenue basket and employed more than 1.7 million people directly and indirectly.

Mobile Phone, he said, was a key channel for e-government’s strategy and financial inclusion drive, with public institutions now using mobile money, SMS, and USSD platforms to deliver services to the public.

Mr Ashigbey was speaking during the launch of “Mobile Report” by Jumia Ghana Limited in Accra to enlighten the public on the state of smartphone accessibility in Africa, particularly Ghana, and how it was contributing to socio-economic development.

He said since the inception of mobile phone usage in the country, 25 years ago, the industry had connected close to 70 percent of the population, which amounted to over 20 million individuals and connected about half of the population to the internet through their mobile phones.

“With the government’s drive for digitisation and building smart citizens, leveraging mobile technology is key to the vision and requires collaboration by all stakeholders, including; development organisations, private sector players like; Jumia and the mobile industry itself,” he said.

The collaboration, he said, would create opportunities to extend mobile services to unconnected populations, empower women and reduce all forms of inequality amongst the citizenry.

“I will use this platform to reiterate that mobile is a powerful tool in enhancing people’s lives by enabling them to access personalised, value-added services”.

Speaking on the rampant sale of pre-registered sim cards to mobile phone users, Mr Ashigbey urged telecommunication companies to get a robust database to revalidate sim cards that had been registered to track agents who registered them with their identification cards and sold to customers.

Mr Ore Odusanya, the Managing Director of Jumia Ghana Limited, who delivered the report said, Jumia in 2018 sold 1.5 million smartphones in Africa as against 900 thousand in 2017.

According to the report, he said brands like Huawei and Samsung were reaching out to the underserved segment of the market and introducing affordable smartphones and other brands continued to introduce highly specked smartphones at high prices, which contributed to 60 percent of the smartphones sold in Africa.

These brands, he said, were Infinix, Tecno and Hotwave, adding that, they were among the top five mobile brands on Jumia in 2018.

Mr Odusanya noted that the adoption of smartphones, came the purchase and use of data which implied a direct impact on growth in the sector. He disclosed that mobile broadband coverage in Ghana in 2018 was 80.33 percent and Jumia would launch its “Mobile Week” from April 8 to 14, 2019 to enable members of the public purchase smart phones at discounted prices.

The brands that would participate in the Mobile Week include; Samsung, Tecno, Infinix, Huawei, and Apple.

Source: GNA

Mr Selorm Adadevoh, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN Ghana, has said the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to the development of student’s academic work and this has propelled them to invest in education.

Mr Adadevoh was addressing students and staff of the New Juaben Senior High School at the commissioning of a library and ICT centre at Koforidua.

The facility was built at a cost of GH¢ 602,150.00 and expected to benefit over 2,500 students as well as teachers.

The facility has a 200-seater conventional library, 20-seater ICT centre, teachers common area as well as internet service.

He said through the MTN Ghana Foundation, his outfit has championed and supported national development efforts by investing in education, health and economic empowerment.

Mr Adadevoh said so far over GH¢33 million has been invested by the Foundation in 144 projects across the country out of which 82 are in education.

He said 26 ICT centers and four libraries have been built and handed over to schools, whiles, two libraries have been restocked through the Foundation.

Mr Adadevoh said research has proven that libraries are still considered very important by a greater majority of people.

He said the main function of a school library is to develop the reading and research habits of students, fill the information gap and helps to open the world view of students.

Mr Adadevoh said the conventional approach to library development in the past was just providing a facility with books, shelves and sitting areas, however, the effect of digitization has become pervasive and libraries now have ICT facilities embedded in them.

He urged the school administration and the students to make good use of the library to create a community of students who are connected not just by books or subjects but also in innovative ideas sharing.

He also urged teachers to look for videos which better illustrates some of the things they teach and through the internet students can learn how to create content or run small experiments.

He said the fibre broad band has been deployed to the school and on the strength of that, Huawei is paying for the monthly recurrent charges for a period of 5 years.

Mr Frank Obeng Wilson, the Headmaster of the school, expressed profound gratitude to MTN for the gesture extended to them which is going to help promote and enhance academic work in the school.

GNA

Who doesn’t want value for money? Everyone deserves to get the most out of their money for the services or products they pay for and enjoy it to their maximum satisfaction.

So, imagine walking into a restaurant with your dinner date, and ordering that favorite dish off the menu – jollof and goat meat. As you enjoy the meal you get satisfied but have a little of the portion left on your plate.

You wish that you could pack the rest of the meal to take away and enjoy later, but to your utmost dismay, the restaurant does not allow food to be packed away. While you look on thinking of what you could do; the waitress clears the table and, in the process, takes away the remaining food even though you paid the full price for it.

This is similar to what happens to our data when we don’t consume all before the expiry period! Thanks to AirtelTigo, the days of customers losing unused data at the end of the day, week or month is finally over.

Christened the “Big Time Data Bundles”, there are no daily, weekly or monthly validity constraints; data never expires. This is in response to feedback received from customers on how frustrating it is to lose unused data bundles due to the validity constraint. AirtelTigo chooses to evolve to meet customer’s needs with solutions that make mobile telecommunications affordable and accessible.

For the first time in Ghana, history is being written in the telecommunications industry with AirtelTigo offering affordable data bundles that don’t expire. The company is giving new and existing pre-paid customers more data for GHS 1, GHS 2, GHS 5 and GHS 10.

Essentially, customers can get 1.5 GB for only GHS10 to watch their favorite movies online and live football games. The bundles will also enable customers to access their favourite social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram among others.

The Director of Marketing Operations for AirtelTigo, Pius Owusu Tuffour shares his excitement about being able to give customers value for their money with the ‘Big Time Data Bundle’.

He explained that the company recognises the growing demand for mobile data in the country, but customers want to be cost–effective with their data usage, adding, “There’s no need to be on a data plan that doesn’t give you value.”

He said the company’s move will offer customers great benefits. “We designed this product to provide great benefits to our customers, without compromising on value-for-money. Customers can now enjoy their data without having to worry about it expiring.”

With the ‘Big Time Data Bundles’ offering affordable data with no validity periods now in place, AirtelTigo is significantly reducing the cost of connecting Ghanaians to the internet.

Customers can now enjoy the ‘Big Time Data Bundle’ by dialing *111# and customers can also purchase using a scratch card or through AirtelTigo Money (also known as ATM).

Source: airteltigo.com.gh