The Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has commended Vodafone Ghana for the appointment of a Ghanaian Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to steer the affairs of the company.

Vodafone Ghana last month announced that Mrs Patricia Obo-Nai, the Director of Customer Operations and Fixed Business, would replace Ms Yolanda Cuba as Chief Executive, with effect from April 1, 2019.

A statement from the Communications Department of Vodafone Ghana explained that Ms Cuba had to return to her former role as the Chief Strategy Officer of Vodacom South Africa, after having completed her three-year assignment in Ghana.

According to the statement, Otumfuo said: “It is satisfying that we finally have a Ghanaian CEO at the helm of Vodafone Ghana. I commend you for this achievement and I’m confident that she will be given the needed support to succeed and build on the legacy of Yolanda by taking the company to greater heights”.

The statement quoted him as saying this when the management of the company paid a courtesy call on him to introduce the new CEO to him.

The team was led by Dr Kobina Quansah, the Board Chairman; Mr Gayheart Mensah, the External Affairs Director; and Mrs Ashiokai Akrong, the Human Resources Director.

Mrs Obo-Nai, according to the statement said: “I want to first of all, congratulate Nana on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his coronation. I also commend him for his unparalleled contribution and leadership in the economic and social development of this region”.

“Finally, I want to assure all our customers that we will continue to remain a leader in innovation and creativity in the industry, whilst ensuring that their technological future is exciting.”

The statement disclosed that the visit was also to update Otumfuo on the upcoming Asantehene Golf Open Championship, for which Vodafone is the headline sponsor.

“This year’s tournament, which begins on May 8, 2019, is expected to assume another dimension of prominence as it coincides with the 20th anniversary of the coronation of the great monarch,” the statement said.

The team also donated a cheque for GH¢50,000.00 for the celebration of Otumfuo’s coronation.

Source: GNA

[caption id="attachment_5470" align="alignnone" width="300"] Mr. Archie Hesse; CEO of GHIPSS[/caption]

The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) has confirmed that the challenges that customers of MTN are having with sending money from the network to others has to do with capacity issues which all stakeholders involved are working on to resolve.

This follows several complaints by customers of MTN over persistent challenges with the network for the past few months, which have prevented them from sending money to their friends, family and acquaintances on other networks.

However in an interview with Citi Business News, the Chief Executive of GhIPSS, Archie Hesse assured that his outfit is working to resolve the issue.“I would like to concur with MTN’s Eli Hene that the current situation is not a sabotage on MTN’s part. Since inception the system has been running perfectly well, however we realized that in the last month there have been a number of failures in some of the transactions emanating mainly from MTN. We’ve since started working with MTN and the other telecommunication companies to try and find out what exactly the problem is. What we have found out is that there are some minor capacity challenges which we working on,” Mr. Hesse said.

The mobile money interoperability, which is in its first year of implementation, is to allow seamless transfer of cash from one network to another.

It is also in line with the government’s digitization agenda to promote a cashlite economy.

Mr. Hesse indicated that a more permanent solution will be implemented to avert any further issues on the mobile money interoperability platform for the next fve years.

This he said should be rolled out latest by June this year.

“In order to eliminate some of the capacity constraints, over the weekend the telecommunication companies all got separate web services to ensure they all have their independent services. The network team is also doing its job with the network capacity et cetera. By May thereabout we will be migrating to our Power Nine system which will give us enough capacity for the next 5 years.”

Responding to concerns by MTN customers on the Citi Breakfast Show on April 15, 2019, the General Manager for Mobile Money Services at MTN, Eli Hini said they are focused on making the interoperability platform more convenient for their customers.

“We have not done anything on our side to make customers life uncomfortable. And we’ll never do that. Because we believe that the service helps customers enjoy our platform better, and we’ll continue to work to make the platform very convenient for our customers.”

Source: CBN

[caption id="attachment_5462" align="alignnone" width="300"] L-R, Ms Yolanda Cuba and Mrs. Patricia Obo-Nai[/caption]

The Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications has organized a farewell and welcome cocktail in honour of the outgoing and incoming Chief Executives of Vodafone; Ms Yolanda Cuba and Mrs Patricia Obo-Nai respectively on 1^st April in Cantonments-Accra.

In his opening remarks, Chief Executive officer of the Chamber, Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey highlighted the importance of the gathering which recognizes and rewards colleague CEOs while creating the right ambience for stakeholders to engage together as an industry.”
Chief Executive Officer of AirtelTigo, Mitwa Kaemba Ng’ambi also described Ms. Cuba in her remarks as an authentic personality and a role model for her personally. According to Mitwa the outgoing Chief Executive was passionate and committed to her work when she was at the helm of Vodafone.

“People can be committed to and passionate about lots of things, but this by itself is not enough. Authenticity is when someone believes in what they say or acts in a way that is consistent with their beliefs and that is the characteristics of Ms. Yolanda Cuba.” She remarked.

Mr. Joe Anokye, Director General of the National Communications Authority in a speech lauded Ms. Cuba for her tremendous work at Vodafone especially leading her team to deploy 4G services to their customers. He described the move as a great accomplishment and a legacy that she’s leaving behind for the incoming CEO of Vodafone Ghana.
Mr. Anokye also described Ms. Yolanda Cuba as a transformational leader and an accomplished business leader, who is widely regarded across the African continent. He disclosed that owing to her remarkable performance, commitment and passion to her work and the telecommunications industry, Ms. Cuba has inspired a lot of young girls who are aspiring to be like her.

Ms. Yolanda Cuba in her acceptance speech recounted her journey with the Chamber and her competitors in pursuing policy and regulations that always sought to make the industry thrive and to offer world-class telecommunications services to Ghanaians.

The Vice Chair of the Parliament Select Committee on Communications and MP for Sekondi Constituency, Western Region, Hon. Andrew Kofi Egyapa Mercer in his remarks pledged the Committee’s willingness and preparedness to collaborate and strengthen existing relationship with the industry to develop policies that will inure to the benefit of all.

Incoming CEO of Vodafone, Mrs Patricia Obo- Nai in her acceptance speech, pledged to continue and build upon the legacy of Ms. Cuba, working with the Chamber and the mobile industry to ensure business sustainability and more improved customer experience.

About Yolanda Cuba
Yolanda joined Vodafone Ghana as Chief Executive Officer in June 2016 from Vodacom Group in South Africa, where she was the Director of Strategy and Mergers & Acquisitions covering five markets – South Africa, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Lesotho. She previously served as Executive Director of Strategy and Business Support at the South

About Patricia Obo-Nai
An Engineer by profession, she comes into her new role with 22 years of experience in Information Technology (IT) and Telecommunications. In addition, she has extensive commercial experience in the telecommunications industry.
Until her appointment, Patricia was the Director of Fixed Business and Customer Operations of Vodafone Ghana.

Source: Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications

Mr. Romeo Bugyei, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of IT Consortium Limited, has called for closer collaboration between government, regulatory bodies and FinTechs to create awareness on the pension schemes for the informal sector.

He said in order to achieve successful financial inclusion, FinTech companies must be supported to enable them efficiently deliver Digital Financial Services (DFS) to Ghanaians.

A statement issued in Accra quoted Mr Bugyei as making the call at a stakeholder forum co-hosted by the Ghana Technology Chamber and the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications.

The event was support by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and the State Secretariat of Economic Affairs of Switzerland on the theme: “New DFS Products and how they are being enabled.”

“FinTech companies run recurrent costs regardless of whether a transaction goes through or not. We need to push informal pensions whether it is to a farmer, house help or market woman and that makes it difficult,” he said.

He said when the National Pensions Act (2008) was put together, there was no allocation made for other channels that support the work of custodians and fund managers like the Telcos and FinTechs, hence, making it difficult for them to make meaningful revenue to support their operations.

“If the regulator can come in with a specific fee for our channels, it will help a lot,” he added.

He said last year, IT Consortium, in collaboration with MTN Ghana and United Pensions Trustees introduced ‘My Own Pension’, a Mobile Money driven pensions platform, the first of its kind in Ghana and Africa.

The MOP is a three-tier pension scheme tailored to resolve the problem of financial insecurity among pensioners aimed at providing Ghanaians, especially, those in the informal sector, a simple and convenient way to save and make voluntary pension contributions.

Mr. Bugyei said although his organization has gotten very little out of its operations in the digital pensions space, they were determined to develop more products that promote financial inclusion, while working closely with other stakeholders within the sector.

He advised operators within the DFS space to seek the backing of regulators of the industry, when designing products and services for public use.

The CEO said this would serve as an assurance to end-users that their finances and other investments were secure following the recent financial sector troubles in the country, which have affected public trust.

Mr. Kenneth Ashigbey, the CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, said the chamber was keen on the development of the DFS sector and stressed on the need for financial technology businesses to stop being passive consumers of legislation but they should be able to challenge portions of the Payments Systems and Settlement Bill they feel were not right.

The Bill, which has been passed by Parliament and yet to receive presidential assent is expected to regulate electronic payments and control financial institutions which offer electronic payment services in the country.

Mr Kwame Oppong, Financial Sector Specialist at CGAP, emphasized the call by Mr Ashigbey for FinTech companies to be more actively involved in shaping legislation.

“As long as the industry continues to collaborate, understand the issues and make a determined effort to engage our government to make sure that the change we need happens, we will be in a good place,” he added.

He said even if progress was slow, “we will eventually get it and slowly with time, we will begin to take control of what needs to happen.”

GNA