Communications Minister asked to ratify Ghana-ZTE China $60m deal.

The First Deputy Speaker, Mr Ebo Barton-Odro, has given the Minister of Communications a week to resolve issues raised by a joint parliamentary committee on an agreement between the government and ZTE Corporation of China before the House will ratify the agreement.

The Supply Contract for Dedicated Security Information System between the government and ZTE Corporation, China, was laid before Parliament on September 19, 2013 and referred to the Joint Committee on Communications and Defence and Interior for consideration and report.

The contract is to source the necessary funds for the Global Open Trunking A Architecture (GOTA) project which began in 2007 for the country’s public services.

The GOTA system is a trunking system based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 2000 technology which provides high speed wireless data service, in compliance with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) standards.

The first phase of the project deployed in 2007 is said to be running well and serving the southern sector of Ghana while the second phase, which is an expansion of the project, will cover the northern part of the country.

While the first phase provided a capacity of 50,000 lines with 72 Base Transceiver Stations (BTS), the phase two is to increase the capacity to 200,000 with a system that can serve up to three million users.

Contract and Project

The scope of the contract included the supply, delivery, installation and commissioning of the equipment and services by the contractor, ZTE of China.

The total cost of the project is $60,047,075.00

Recommendation

When the motion for the adoption of the joint committee’s report was moved yesterday, some MPs, particularly from the Minority side, raised some concerns about the credibility of the contractor.

The Member of Parliament for Assin Central and ranking member of the Communications Committee, Mr Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, told the House about the alleged bad track record of ZTE.

That and other comments in addition to the recommendation that the agreement should be ratified taking into consideration the committee’s reservations, compelled Mr Barton-Odro to stand the motion down and gave the Minister of Communications a week to sit down with the joint committee to resolve the reservations.

Source: Daily Graphic