MTN war of words with Kelni GVG grows louder
Ghana’s leading mobile network operator is unwilling to hand over data with customers’ details to the operator of the telco monitoring platform
The dispute is deepening between MTN Ghana, the market-leading mobile network operator (MNO), and Kelni GVG, the Haitian operator of Ghana’s Common Monitoring Platform (CMP), set up to monitor and assure revenue flows from the country’s telecommunications companies.
MTN Ghana insists that it does not see the need to hand over details of its subscribers to Kelni GVG.
This follows the signature by President Akufo-Addo of an Executive Instrument (EI) that requires licensed telecommunication service providers in times of emergency to disclose information obtained from their customers, including data on dialled numbers, Mobile Money merchant codes and uncashed Mobile Money transfers.
The president signed the EI on 24 March. It is one of the measures the government is taking to address the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Taking advantage”
MTN is challenging the EI before the human rights division of the high court in Accra.
In its suit, MTN accuses Kelni GVG of taking advantage of the pandemic not to monitor traffic but to violate the privacy of its customers.
“[We are] aggrieved by the attempt of [Kelni GVG] to use the opportunity of the pandemic and the EI to obtain data which is not required by the EI and has no relevance to the stated purpose of the law – ie, COVID-19 contact tracing,” a section of MTN’s affidavit reads.
Accused of perjury
Meanwhile, a private legal practitioner, Francis Kwarteng Arthur, is demanding that the acting chief executive officer of Kelni GVG, Rouba Habboushi, be charged with perjury.
He has filed a separate application in court accusing the Kelni GVG boss of lying under oath.
Arthur says Kelni GVG, the monitor, contacted the MNOs and requested that they make available to it personal information about their own subscribers and that of subscribers to other networks.
Habboushi denies making such a request on behalf of Kelni GVG. However, Arthur insists in his sworn affidavit that documentary evidence exists to disprove Habboushi’s categorical denial.
The court has set 4 June for the next hearing in the case.
E A Alanore
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