Sam George holds NCA responsible for internet service disruptions

Ghanaian

The ongoing disruption in internet services has prompted Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Communications Committee, Sam Nartey George, to lay blame on the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation.

The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications attributed the difficulties to outages on several submarine fibre optic cables, resulting in a limited capacity and impacting internet, data, and Voice Over IP services

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In response, Sam George criticized the National Communication Authority (NCA) for failing to facilitate the smooth operation of satellite stations landing in Ghana, leading to an over-dependence on fibre optic cables and exacerbating the internet
crisis.

"Government is not spearheading anything, the private operators of the subsea cables are spearheading a repair work and that is what I pointed out to the minister that the regulator she oversees, the NCA, has failed. We must be able to call the NCA and say they have failed under the watch of the minister and we expect better from them. Because they failed to ensure that we had adequate redundancy in the country. They failed to ensure that we had other players in the industry in Ghana," Sam George stated on Joy FM.

He emphasized the need to hold the NCA accountable for its failure to ensure adequate redundancy in the country's telecommunications infrastructure and for hindering the landing of subsea cables like Aquino's Google line, which could have alleviated the capacity issues.

"A provider like Aquino which is the Google line, its Google subsea cable for two years was seeking permission to land in Ghana. The NCA failed to facilitate that and so they went to Togo. It is that very line today that is providing connectivity in Togo and Nigeria. If the regulator failed to allow that subsea cable to land in Accra for two years, frustrated them and they had to go to Togo and today we don’t have capacity, meanwhile there is capacity on that line, who do we hold responsible?"

The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram stated that Ghana would have had more satellite capacity if Glo, a telecommunications company, had continued its operations in the country.

"Glo had to fold up and close down its Glo one line in Ghana on the 14th of January, this year. Today, Glo One is one of the main backers that is providing capacity in Nigeria. Imagine if the Ministry and NCA had not frustrated Glo out of the country, we would have had capacity. So, this is not rocket science' this is the failure of the NCA in doing its job," he added.