Online: The High Street Journal, October 30, 2025
CUTS International’s Appiah Kusi Adomako urges the NCA to review MTN’s Significant Market Power status, arguing five years of corrective measures have failed to balance Ghana’s telecom market, leaving MTN dominant and smaller operators struggling.
It is emerging that five years after MTN Ghana was declared a Significant Market Power (SMP), the expected balance in Ghana’s telecom sector is still missing.
The experts have identified that, instead, the gap between MTN and other operators has widened. It is on this premise that a competition economist and West African Regional Director of CUTS International, Appiah Kusi Adomako, says calls for a serious rethink.
He believes the National Communications Authority (NCA) must review MTN’s SMP status and its accompanying measures to reflect the realities of today’s market, warning that Ghana may be slipping into a possible “winner-takes-all” telecom landscape.
A Look Back: Why MTN Was Declared SMP
In June 2020, the NCA declared MTN Ghana a Significant Market Power under Section 20(10) of the Electronic Communications Act (Act 775). At the time, MTN controlled about 57% of the voice market and nearly 68% of the data market. This was an overwhelming share that regulators feared gave it the power to dictate prices and shape competition.
The move aimed to prevent MTN’s dominance from stifling innovation, consumer choice, and fair play. The consumer protection advocate admits that the intent was not to punish success. It was rather to ensure a level playing field that keeps the market open and competitive.
The Subsequent Corrective Measures
After the declaration, the NCA rolled out a series of measures to restrain MTN’s market influence while supporting smaller players like Vodafone and AirtelTigo (now AT).
These included on-net/off-net parity, to prevent MTN users from enjoying cheaper rates when calling other MTN numbers compared to other networks.
It also introduced asymmetrical interconnect rates, allowing smaller operators to pay lower termination fees to MTN, including regulatory approval of tariffs for some MTN services, to prevent underpricing rivals.
Infrastructure sharing, requiring MTN to open its network for national roaming, especially in underserved areas, was introduced.
In principle, these measures made sense. They were designed to keep MTN’s strength in check while giving smaller operators room to grow.
Status After Five Years
But half a decade on, the results are sobering. The competition economist observes that rather than levelling the field, the market has tilted even more. Reports suggest MTN now controls over 75% of active mobile subscribers and about 90% of total industry revenue.
Instead of rising, smaller operators are shrinking. AirtelTigo, once seen as a potential challenger, is struggling to stay afloat. There are also reports of cell site shutdowns over unpaid debts.
Consumers, too, are not seeing the expected relief. Data prices have risen, not fallen, while complaints about poor service persist. The promise of better competition leading to lower costs and higher quality remains unfulfilled.
MTN’s Role
To be clear, Appiah Kusi Adomako stresses that MTN has done nothing illegal. He acknowledges that MTN has invested heavily, expanded coverage, and taken risks. It deserves credit for its success.
However, the real issue, he argues, lies elsewhere in the failure of other operators and the state’s partial ownership of struggling networks to sustain fair competition.
The government’s dual role as both regulator and shareholder in some operators has blurred the lines of accountability, leaving MTN to soar while others stagnate.
“It is important to emphasize that MTN has done nothing wrong in the sense of illegality or impropriety. On the contrary, MTN invested heavily in infrastructure, took risks, expanded coverage, and built scale. It deserves credit for that,” he admitted.
Why a Review Is Urgent
Given these developments, the lawyer believes it’s time to revisit the SMP designation and the measures attached to it. He insists the goal of the SMP was to correct the imbalance; however, if after five years, the situation has deepened, then clearly something is not working.
He proposes a comprehensive review of the SMP framework, including whether the corrective measures are still relevant, and if new strategies are needed to foster competition, encourage investment, and protect consumers.
Without such review, he warns, Ghana risks ending up with a telecom market where one operator dominates pricing, access, and innovation, leaving little room for others to survive.
“It is time for the NCA, in consultation with government and stakeholders, to review the SMP portfolio and ask: are the existing remedies working? If not, why not? What adjustments can create a truly level playing field? he suggested.
He further raises the concern of security. He reveals that a telecom market dominated by one operator is frankly risky for a digital economy. For him, should MTN suffer a significant cyberattack, a large network outage, or systemic failure, the impact would be nationwide. Voice, data, and mobile money services could be disrupted. It could affect workflow nationwide.
“Such dependency introduces systemic fragility,” he noted.
As part of recommendations, he calls on the government to provide tax, spectrum, or infrastructure incentives to the non-SMPs and newer entrants or expanding operators, recognizing they face a scale disadvantage.
“Government must be willing to sacrifice some upfront revenue on spectrum allocation and other taxes to enable the non-SMPs to grow before they can be ‘weaned off’ any state support,” he noted.
The Bottomline
The CUTS International boss maintains MTN should not be punished for being efficient, but the system must ensure fairness for all.
He explains that competition is not about cutting down the strong; it’s about empowering the weak to stand taller.
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