The complaints have been growing louder. Ghanaian subscribers of MTN have taken to social media and public forums in increasing numbers, frustrated by data bundles that seem to vanish faster than they should, or disappear entirely without explanation. For many, the finger has pointed squarely at the telecom giant itself.
Now, MTN Ghana’s Chief Executive Officer has had enough. And he wants the public to know exactly where the company stands.
Addressing the controversy on Friday, April 17, MTN Ghana CEO Stephen Blewett flatly dismissed allegations that the company is stealing customers’ data. His argument was direct: MTN simply has nothing to gain from it.
“There’s zero incentive for MTN to steal data from you. Because it will just chase people away. It’s not something we do; it’s not part of our values,” he said.
In his view, any telecom company that manipulated customer data would be signing its own death warrant, eroding the trust that keeps subscribers on its network and ultimately driving them to competitors. It is, he argued, bad business sense as much as it is a breach of integrity.
If MTN is not the culprit, then what is? According to Blewett, the answer lies in how dramatically smartphone usage has changed, and how little many users understand about what their devices are doing in the background.
He pointed to three key drivers of data consumption that often go unnoticed: background activity from mobile applications running silently without the user’s knowledge, automatic updates downloading software in the background, and the growing appetite for high-definition video streaming, which consumes data at a far higher rate than most people realise.
Together, these factors, he argued, explain why data appears to drain so quickly, not fraud, but the realities of modern digital life.
Blewett did not stop at defending the company. He turned the spotlight on subscribers as well, urging them to take a more active role in managing their own data consumption.
Practical steps, he suggested, include monitoring which applications are running in the background, reviewing app permissions, and adjusting video streaming quality settings to reduce unnecessary data use.
“So there’s a lot that we have to do as customers. We have to be very responsible,” he said.
It is a message that is unlikely to fully satisfy frustrated subscribers, many of whom remain unconvinced. But for MTN Ghana’s CEO, the position is clear: the company is not the enemy, and understanding how data is consumed in today’s smartphone era is the first step toward resolving the dispute.
Source: Apexnewsgh.com