The Minister of Communication, Hon. (Mrs.) Ursula Owusu Ekuful has refuted claims that the Real-Time Monitoring under the Common Platform Monitoring system by the National Communications Authority (NCA), will betray the confidentiality of all communications carried out on mobile networks, assuring that, the Real-Time Monitoring mechanism actual focus is on the revenue it will generate for the country and not in, to delve into people’s privacy.

On ensuring the confidentiality of all communications done on mobile networks, Mrs. Ekuful has vouched to protect the privacy of every user or customer on the mobile networks involved.

“I want to make this point absolutely clear that, we well enforce the law on confidentiality of the networks, where the monitoring platform will not have the capability of either snooping on the voice conversation or the data that is carried on the networks, and that is not negotiable”.

She disclosed this to the media during a visit to the Common Platform Monitoring Centre at the NCA over the weekend.

Following the recent controversy surrounding the $89 million contract with Kelni-GVG by the government to monitor call traffic, the Communication Minister Mrs. Ekuful, said no one should be averse to this monitoring mechanism, since the NCA respects the privacy of citizens and has also put in place three data protection practitioners to ensure that, information of every Ghanaian remains safe as the law requires.

“Our real focus is only on the money; the revenue it will generate for the country, and not to snoop on people’s conversation”. She assured.

According to the Minister, though the whole process is yet to begin, she’s of the hope that, all the network operators will do the needful for the team to have more visibility about the actual volumes of traffic they carry on their networks, for government to also be able to access the right revenue that are due it for collection.

“It is not a matter of having confrontations with the industry, but a matter of enforcing our laws in all respect. We’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that, they have a peace of mind to do their work and also work with them to facilitate their resolution.

But we also want them to realise that, the privilege we’ve given them to work in this country has some responsibilities attached to it, and they do have a responsibility to pay the right taxes to the government of Ghana. We will also access all the taxes that are due and collect every penny”. She emphasized.