Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) plans to leverage its transmission assets to tap into the potential of the telecommunications services sector as part of its future investment plans, board chairman Emmanuel Appiah-Korang has disclosed.
At its annual general meeting in Accra this week, GRIDCo amended the objects of the company to include ?carrying out general commercial telecommunication and other related services using its transmission assets?.
Mr. Appiah-Korang said now that the company has the go-ahead of its main shareholder, government, the next step is to carry out research and introduce measures to support the new service.
??We have just been given the mandate, and naturally we will want to do some research. For instance, there is currently a technology that enables towers to be used to develop cell sites. We cannot do that ourselves, but we have been approached by a number of companies that have the technology and can leverage our towers to improve telecommunication while the company earns some revenue.
?We also have as part of our operations fibre-optic cables that we use to gather information; this is another asset we can leverage to get additional income,? he said.
He said should the company roll-out the service and operate it efficiently, GRIDCo can enhance Internet connectivity throughout the country because of its far-reaching transmission lines.
The intention to veer into the telecommunications sector has been pending for some time after two significant shareholders — the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) and the Ministry of Energy — pushed for further deliberations on the matter.
The chairman said the decision will not in any way push the power transmission company away from its main focus, but rather enable it to exploit opportunities in the telecoms sector to boost revenue.
?We do not seek to deviate from our main object of providing and improving transmission services, which is to build more transmissions lines and substations.
However, by this venture we hope to get some additional income by providing some telecoms-related services that GRIDCo ordinarily would have provided anyway through its operations.?
He also justified the need for higher power tariffs. ?Any increase is better than no increase. However, if we want reliable service we need to pay for the service. All I can say is that what we are getting now is not adequate. For an ideal situation, there should be increases in tariffs accompanied by increases in power reliability and supply,? he said.
By Patrick PAINTSIL
