The government has said it is saving more than USD1 million monthly through the Common Platform used to monitor the activities of the telcos.

Briefing journalists in Accra on Thursday, 13 November 2019 on some gains made since the establishment of the platform, the Minister of Communication, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said the platform is also expected to save some 66 million dollars at the end of the five-year contract.

“From the gains mentioned above, the platform has provided more value to the state at a lesser amount compared to the previous contracts”, she said.

The Minister stated that the revenue being accrued from the system vindicates the government’s position in putting the Common Platform in place to monitor the activities of the telcos and to ensure they pay what is meant for the state.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful revealed that beyond saving the state millions of dollars, the Platform, unlike the previous contracts, offers real-time monitoring of 2.5 billion transactions per day within the telecom sector, which include calls, SMSs, Mobile Money transactions and monitoring as an added component.

The government of Ghana commenced the monitoring of telco activities based on the establishment of the Common Platform per Section 14 of the Communication Services Tax Act 2008(Act 754) as amended by the Communication Service Tax Act 2013 (Act 864).

The platform has four components, which include fraud management, traffic monitoring, revenue assurance and mobile money monitoring.