Vice President of IMANI Africa, Selorm Branttie, has praised the Ministry of Communications and Digital Technology for its decision not to renew the controversial Kelni GVG contract, describing the move as a win for transparency and the Ghanaian people.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Technology, Samuel Nartey George, during a presser, announced the termination of the contract with Kelni GVG, the private firm managing Ghana’s telecom traffic monitoring system, once the agreement expires.
Mr. George cited escalating operational costs as the key reason behind the decision.
According to him, the cost of running the Common Monitoring Platform (CMP) has ballooned to account for 84% of the total revenue generated from the system—up from 28% at the inception of the contract in 2018.
The CMP was introduced to track international inbound calls and curb revenue leakages in the telecommunications sector.
However, concerns about value for money and data security have persisted since the platform’s launch.
Reacting to that on Morning Starr with Naa Dedei Tettey, Mr. Branttie expressed strong approval, asserting that the contract amounted to a national scam.
He believes the platform provided no tangible benefit and instead posed risks to citizens’ data privacy.
Mr. Branttie emphasized that the contract’s termination is a financial relief for the country and a lesson in protecting national interests from exploitative arrangements.
He said, “Well, it’s, I believe it’s great news for anybody who cares about Ghana, basically because that Kelny DVD contract, from its genesis to its whole implementation and execution, has been an operation that basically a scam to line up people’s pockets at the expense of regulatory edict or law, if we should put it that way.
And there was absolutely no benefit that was gained from it.”
“Rather, there was dangers that our data was being given access to by people who were not authorized to have that access and we were paying a humongous amount of money for literally building a spreadsheet, technically. And for some of us, we believe that was a giant scam that the government underwrote and therefore, seeing the contract run out, is good news for everybody who has Ghana at heart. So essentially, it’s going to save Ghanaians some money? Beyond that, we should never, ever put ourselves in a position where we are scammed by unscrupulous individuals who use state apparatus to hoodwink us of lots of money for no reason.”
