The Finance Minister has provided a subtle justification for the $89 million revenue monitoring contract awarded to Kelni GVG.

At the launch of the MTN share offer Tuesday, Ken Ofori Atta said the issue of “monitoring is important” in the country’s drive to raise more revenue for the development of the country.

He said whatever issues there are with the Kelni GVG contract, the country will be served best if stakeholders resolve the matter.

“Recently also there is a whole lot of noise about some platform services that are going on. And people have also brought up the issue of data and data protection. These are all issues we can find cures to without getting political.

While admonishing the telcos to find solutions to data protection quandary he was quick to observe that monitoring of revenue is non-negotiable.

“…But the issue of monitoring is important. This is not the first place that is going to be done. We should marshal ourselves as a people in a certain direction to make sure that the nation moves ahead,” he said.

Government has been at the receiving end for signing what IMANI and other critics say is a needless and overpriced contract for revenue monitoring assurance in the telcos.

The $89 million contract with Kelni GVG, which was signed in December 2017 was for the IT company to provide four services including mobile money monitoring services, real time revenue monitoring assurances in the telcos.

The signing of the GVG contract led to the abrogation of a similar contract with SUBAH who was appointed in 2010 to also provide revenue assurance monitoring.

But IMANI insists the contract with GVG is not in the best interest of the country and does not make business sense.

That notwithstanding, the Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta is looking for a more progressive way of resolving the matter which has grabbed headlines over the last few weeks.

MTN share offer

Mr Ken Ofori Atta is convinced the MTN share offer is a major step towards executing the local content policy which government has been championing.

The telecom giant is targeting to raise 3.47 billion cedis in the historic public offering with a share offer going for 75 pesewas.