We used 8 months to do what they couldn’t do in 8 years

The Minister for Communication, Digital Technology, and Innovation, Samuel Nartey George, has taken a swipe at the previous leadership of the Communication Ministry during the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, describing their eight-year tenure as a period of complete misrule.

According to him, in just eight months, the Ministry of Communication, under the Mahama-led NDC administration, has already chalked more success than the NPP’s entire eight-year rule.

During an appearance on Channel 1 TV’s The Point of View on Monday, Sam George claimed that the general populace would need some time in coming to terms with his Ministry’s successes, after a tough eight years of inaction from same ministry under the previous Akufo-Addo government.

“People are facing difficulties in appreciating this, if we’ve been used to eight years of misrule and lack of action from the ministry and all of a sudden you see a ministry in overdrive, it takes some getting used to, people cannot comprehend that in eight months, we are doing what they couldn’t do in eight years, but that is the blessing of acceleration,” he said.

“The bottom line here is this, if in eight years you were paying four times the amount, and in eight months someone has reduced it by 50%, whatever that disparity was, I mean, that is a massive one,” he added.

His comments follow and earlier announcement of a new agreement between the government and MultiChoice Africa, operators of DSTV, which will have the Pay-Tv’s bouquet prices drop between 33% to 50%, effective Wednesday, October 1.

The Minister disclosed that the new pricing structure will have subscribers upgraded to higher packages at no extra cost. Accordingly, customers on the Padi bouquet at GH¢59 are expected to receive the Access bouquet at GH¢99, while Access subscribers paying GH¢99 will be upgraded to a GH¢190 Family package.

Subscribers on the Family package will be upgraded to Compact at GH¢380, with Compact customers expected to be elevated to Compact Plus, while Compact Plus subscribers will be upgraded to DSTV’s flagship Premium package.