Last week Thursday, Ghana encountered significant internet disruption, highlighting vulnerabilities in the nation’s connectivity infrastructure.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Dr Ashigbey pointed out that one of the root causes of the problem was Ghana’s reliance on external connections for essential services like email.

With these services hosted outside the country, the disruption left many unable to access basic online platforms.

Dr. Ashigbey highlighted the expense associated with data connection in Ghana, attributing it to the heavy reliance on international connections for various services.

He stressed the importance of reevaluating the country’s approach to connectivity to ensure national self-sufficiency.

This would involve restructuring internal inter-connectivity and hosting essential services within Ghana to mitigate the risks associated with external disruptions.

“So, we need to start rethinking how all of these things would go so that we can build that national self-sufficiency that goes beyond what NCA [National Communication Authority] would do. All the other telecommunication regulators need to start interacting with each other.”

Dr Ashigbey emphasised the need for cooperation with satellite players and the integration of terrestrial and subsea capacities to achieve resilience in Ghana’s internet infrastructure.

The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications CEO urged stakeholders to prioritise the development of a robust and resilient national internet infrastructure.

He believed that by fostering collaboration and investing in internal connectivity, Ghana can better withstand external disruptions and ensure the uninterrupted provision of essential services to its citizens.

ALSO READ:

• Ghana to get 5G internet connectivity by September 2024 – Ursula

• Internet disruptions won’t endanger December polls – Joe Anokye

The Ghana Telecoms Chamber has urged the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and other technical partners to speak truth to power as government prepares to implement the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) law, effective May 2022.

It says there is some level of uncertainty over the manner in which the Levy would be implemented; hence, the need for stakeholders to be transparent and honest in their engagements to ensure smooth delivery of the initiative.

This comes after the Finance Minister hinted on Wednesday that the implementation of the E-Levy may commence in May.

Ken Ofori-Atta noted that the GRA will have all the systems put in place for the operationalisation of the Levy by then.

Reacting to this on JoyNews’ PM Express, Wednesday, the Chief Executive of the Telecoms Chamber, Ken Ashigbey, said his outfit “would do what is humanly possible to ensure that what the law imposes on us we are able to do.

“I hear the policymaker talk about one month and I am hoping that our colleagues, the GRA and also the technical partners, especially would be able to speak truth to authority and say the thing that actually can be done,” he said.

Mr Ashigbey explained that it will be tough to put in place all the mechanisms needed to start the collection of the tax by the timeline given by the Minister.

“My recommendation, my advice I have given is that we need to start very simply so that in terms of the configurations that need to be done, we can do that well. Bear in mind [that] government requires transactions to go on to be able to generate the revenue.

“You don’t want the situation that because you want to compute the taxes because you want to find out what exemptions are there, transactions begin to fail,” he added.

Ken Ashigbey noted that the Telecommunications Chamber is willing to work in its utmost capacity to ensure that the government’s implementation of the E-levy is successful, while also ensuring that mobile money networks do not lose their traffic as a result.

“We have seen the fliers that GRA has done, in government’s quest to ensure that they’re mitigating a lot of things, there are some complexities that have been introduced and we’re looking at it also as a chamber so that we can also proffer some recommendation to government.

“So there’s a bit of uncertainty as to what we’re going to implement, and we hope that our engagement with GRA and all of that, we will be able to understand what it is and then look at what is technically feasible as well because there are changes, there are settings that have to be done to be able to do this,” he said.