Minister for Communications and Digitalization, Samuel Nartey George has slammed his predecessor Ursula Owusu Ekuful over the government’s acquisition of telecommunication company, AirtelTigo.
The Government of Ghana in 2021 acquired all shares in AirtelTigo and the Minister of Communication and Digitalisation at the time, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful praised the decision saying that it cost the tax payer only a dollar.
However, Samuel Nartey George took over the Ministry for Communications and Digitalization barely two months ago has labeled the decision as reckless.
The Member of Parliament for the Ningo Prampram constituency in a media briefing on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, said the decision was not well thought through because the company is in debts to the tune of GH₵3.5 billion.
“For anyone to have told us that they bought AirtelTigo for $1 and now American Tower Company (ATC), one of the companies AirtelTigo owes brought us a bill of 1.5 cedis and that’s just ATC alone.”
“Today the American Ambassador was in my office with a team and one of the major issues with the indebtedness of ATC. The debts sitting on the books of AirtelTigo is in excess of 3.5 billion cedis,” he said.
Samuel Nartey George added that the debts he has seen clearly proves his point that those who carried out the deal are not patriots.
“So if you bought it for $1 then who is going to pay for the 3.5 billion cedis debt? And that is why I said those who carried out that action lack any sense of patriotism,” Samuel Nartey George added.
Government of Ghana and Bharti Airtel and Millicom International Cellular SA (Tigo) finalised a 100% ownership transfer to the latter in November 2021 at a cost of US$1. The then Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, had defended the deal, stating, “We acquired it for just a dollar.”
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