News:
March 25, 2025
Minister for Communications Samuel Nartey George on Monday, March 24, 2025, revealed that he has inherited a very deeply troubled Ministry that calls for a lot of re-engineering legislative wise and financially.
According to him the legislation on the sector is over twenty-two years old and gave example of the Ghana Telecom Act, 2003, Law on Post and Currier Regulative Commission Act 2003, Law on Data Protection Act 2012, Electronic Transition Act 2008 and Electronic Communications Act 2008.
“The sector’s legislation is supposed to be in the museum not in the ministry; so we are planning in the next four months to bring fresh legislations for all the agencies under the ministry to re-structure it”, he said at a media brief after addressing the House.
Hon Samuel George further revealed that the ministry is debt ridden; the National Communications Authority (NCA) which used to be very buoyant institution that everybody looked up to has been rendered a pale shadow of itself.
Again, NITA has twenty-five Ghana cedis, eighty pesewas as its bank balance at the Bank of Ghana, whiles the agency owes eight hundred and thirteen million, four hundred and eighty six thousand, five hundred and five Ghana cedis eighty-nine pesewas; this is the ministry that we took over.
NITA has a certain contract arrangement with a third party vendor, “I have summoned the third party vendor to appear before me today, I do not understand why all the revenue coming to NITA, the previous administration signed the contract that has taken all of that fund, the revenue that comes and given it to a third party. So, NITA is not getting any money; almost everything at the ministry goes to a third party. Just January this year, services that are run using NITAs infrastructure, that I was supposed to approve to a third party company was almost four million Ghana cedis”.
“I have refused to sign it and it has been referred to the Attorney General and Minister for Justice; I would not sign until I understand why NITA is not getting any money and a private sector player is using NITAs infrastructure earning in excess of almost four million Ghana cedis and all the debt in NITAs book and revenue going to the private sector. The Ministry is a true definition of state capture; and I would take my time to come before the House and brief the House extensively on the rot in the Ministry.”
On staff rationalization ongoing at the ministry, the Minister showing frustration on his face questioned, “if you are a minister and you take over a ministry that has three thousand one hundred and seventeen staffs in the ministry and its agencies and you notice that almost 600 were employed after Saturday December 7, 2024”, basically, you cannot expect me to come and inherit such a mess and continue with it. So the rationalization is ongoing; today I have authorized the termination of a few more at Ghana Post, almost a hundred that were done post December 7, 2024.
“We would continue this rationalization; I would clean up the Ministry and make sure its lean and efficient and carries out its work, and I would be counting on you the media”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com