A Deputy Minister for Communications, George Andah says the government has not signed an agreement with the Chinese firm, Star Communication Network Technology popularly known as StarTimes, over the management of the country’s Digital TV platform.
Although he said, that an agreement is a condition for Ghana to secure a $19 billion loan from the China EXIM bank, Mr. Andah noted that “we did not intend to sign any such contract, [and] we will not sign any such contract.”
The Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA) had raised concerns over the involvement of StarTimes in the project which has been built by a local firm, K-Net.
According to GIBA, StarTimes has already set up a pay-TV in Ghana, therefore allowing them to handle the entire DTT infrastructure would threaten Ghana’s security and independence.
Speaking on The Point of View on Citi TV, the Deputy Minister said they only brought StarTimes on board to inspect the infrastructure put up by K-Net.
“GIBA accused the Ministry and the Government of Ghana of signing a contract to hand over the management of the DTT network to StarTimes. That is exactly the point they were making and we said it is not true. We did not intend to sign any such contract, we will not sign any such contract, and indeed we agree 100% with GIBA that StartTimes has absolutely no role to play and they will have no role to play. And I say this emphatically that it will never happen.”
“It’s a condition to the Chinese EXIM bank facility. It’s not possible. The EXIM bank facility comes with its condition. That is why we are exploring with the sale of spectrums. It cannot be conclusive until we receive the funding,” he added.
Background
The government has postponed migration to digital broadcasting for more than three times.
The government of Ghana signed a $95 million deal with the Chinese company, StarTimes to contract to supply and install the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) network platform for Ghana.
But the contract with Startimes was later abrogated over what then Minister for Communications, Omane Boamah, said was due to “failure of the company to secure the necessary funding from the China Exim Bank to execute the project.”
The government then awarded the digital migration contract to K-Net, a Ghanaian-owned company, whiles StarTimes sued the government of Ghana for what it described as the unfair abrogation of their contract with the state.
The former Mahama government promised to attain this feat by September 2017, but the current Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful at a forum in Accra on the digital migration said Ghana is not ready for the move.
She then shifted the deadline for the migration from analog to digital broadcasting to 2018.
According to her, the project implementation process faced some challenges, hence the change in date.
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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citinewsroom.com/Ghana9
The post We’ve not signed any contract with StarTimes – Andah appeared first on Citi Newsroom.
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