Minister for Communications and Member of Parliament (MP) for Ablekuma West constituency, Ursula Owusu has said Globacom Limited, commonly known as Glo, a Nigerian multinational telecommunications company is facing challenges and Ghana's first 4G LTE company, Surfline a fast and reliable internet service provider is also folding up.
According to her operational challenges and cost of doing business has taken a toll on the companies.
"If you take out MTN, and maybe Vodafon and AirtelTigo, almost all the other telecom operators are suffering . . . with Glo they told us over a year ago that they would love to change their operations because they are looking for someone to cushion them, but in the meantime they wanted to reduce their operational expenses. So they got into an arrangement with AirtelTigo so their customers will roam on AirtelTigo network . . . for now Glo is still doing due deligence with the government to know which decision to take about the company, they haven't finalized it so we are still waiting for them," she explained to Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'kokrokoo' programme Friday morning.
With Surfline it is in a similar situation as Glo.
"Over the years they have had challenges . . . we have been aware they are looking for strategic investments and partnerships, we've been helping them a lot but the conversations didn't materialize . . . so for now their expenditures and debts outweigh their revenues and cost of providing services. Even though they shouldn't have shut down their data centres without reference to the regulator, I have heard they've done that . . . so I have asked NCA to work with them to minimize the impact on their subscribers . . . it is in the process of folding up . . ." Ursula Owusu said.
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