A two-member team from the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) recently visited the National Communications Authority (NCA) with a view to benchmarking NCA’s Common Platform for revenue assurance and traffic monitoring, built by Kelni-GVG.
The team comprised the Chairperson of the Steering Committee, Telecom Intelligent
Monitoring System and Data Monitoring System (TIMS and DMS) Project at the UCC, Hamida Kibirige, and Brenda Wadri, the Deputy Executive Director of Revenue Intelligence.
The two were received by Deputy Director for Consumer and Corporate Affairs at the NCA, Kwame Gyan, who told them that NCA was always happy to open its doors to a sister regulator from the continent.
delegation
“Hosting our Regulator friends across Africa has become a habit we enjoy here at the NCA. This is the third visit we have in the past three months and there are others scheduled as well. We are delighted to share our experiences with our compatriots and to also learn from you as well. We hope that the objective of your visit will be met and it will be a win-win situation for us both”, he said.
Kwame Gyan added that “we have over the years strengthened a number of our regulatory mandate through the acquisition of state-of-the-art tools to assist us with our work; the Common Platform is one of such tools and we are happy to share lessons with you”.
On her part, Hamida Kibirige said they have heard good things about Ghana and found it the ideal destination to receive key lessons on fraud management, revenue assurance as well as other components of Ghana’s Common Platform.
She expressed the hope that Ghana’s lessons will be essential in providing key nuggets for Uganda.
The team was subsequently taken through the historical antecedents of Ghana’s revenue
assurance and fraud management journey, the structure of Ghana’s Common Platform, the legal framework guiding it and its usefulness to the NCA and the Ghana Revenue Authority to date.
The delegation then visited the Common Platform where NCA officials took them on a tour of the facility.
The Common Platform was designed by Kelni-GVG and rolled out in 2018 under the auspices of NCA and GRA for telecom traffic monitoring as well as revenue assurance among other stated benefits.
Since its launch, the Communications and Digitalization Minister has been reporting, it had exposed how government was losing hundreds of millions in taxes due to under-declaration of revenue by telcos prior to the introduction of the Common Platform.
The telcos have however challenged the Minister to provide evidence of her claim but till date, that evidence is yet to be provided.
Meanwhile, the Common Platform cost Ghana some US$89 million under a five year contract, renewable for another five years. It is currently playing a role in the ongoing SIM card re-registration.
