The Communications Minister says the country has recovered ¢770 million that was lost through under-declarations of taxes between 2015 to date after KelniGVG built a Common Platform (CP) for all telcos.

Ursula Owusu-Ekuful told Parliament Friday, that the introduction of CP has helped government detect that ¢470 million of the country’s taxes was lost from the period of 2015 to the first quarter of 2017 and ¢300 million from the second quarter of 2017 till date.

She insisted that there would have been a potential loss of ¢1.5 billion through to the end of the KelniGVG contract in 2022 had the Platform not been implemented.

“The Ministry of Communications decided to hand over the operations and maintenance of eGovernment Infrastructure to a private operator for greater efficiency and to commercialise the excess capacity on the network in a revenue sharing arrangement.

“The private partner is also expected to invest in the upgrade and expansion of the infrastructure,” she stated.

The Communications Minister was forced to appear before Parliament today after the Ningo Prampram MP, Samuel George posed some questions to her on the $89 million deal meant to monitor revenue of mobilisation from the mobile telecommunication companies.

When asked if mobile telecommunication companies would be prosecuted, the Communications Minister said the details have been handed over to the regulator, the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) for appropriate actions.

She further disclosed that ¢327.3 million in tax revenues has been saved since the inception of the KelniGVG contract by setting up of a robust fraud management system that detects where international calls originate.

According to her, the common platform will deliver savings to the tune of ¢799.6 million before it ends in 2022.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful added that the KelniGVG contract has saved the country an additional $1.1 million in charges compared to the amounts Afriwave and Subah were being paid to undertake the same assignment.