Ursula Owusu-Ekuful
The government has announced plans to initiate steps to establish a free roaming system between Ghana and Nigeria, Communications and Digitalisation Minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has said.
Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire became the first ECOWAS countries to implement the ECOWAS free roaming initiative in June 2023.
Plans are currently underway to add Togo, Benin and Gambia, the minister said.
The free roaming service simply means that Ghanaian subscribers visiting Côte d’Ivoire will receive calls without paying roaming fees and will be charged Côte D’Ivoire’s local rates when making calls to Ghana while in Côte d’Ivoire, and vice versa.
Also, subscribers travelling between both countries will be exempted from international roaming charges.
Appearing on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Monday, February 19, 2024, Owusu-Ekuful said “I am hopeful that once the integration picks up, we will connect with Togo, Benin and the Gambia and beyond.”
“Now we are going to start talking to Nigeria as well, where the largest traffic is. It should have been easy to do it with Nigeria, but it was easier to do it with Cote d’Ivoire,” she said.