StarTimes sues government over unlawful termination of contract

The Chinese company, which earlier won the contract to supply and install a reliable energy-efficient and cost-effective Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) network solution in April 2012, has already filed a law suit against government to institute arbitral proceedings at the International Commercial Court, London, over the issue — expecting to claim about US$200million for breach of contract.

Dr Edward Omane Boamah

A Vice President of StarTimes Group, interacting with 13 senior journalists from Ghana and Nigeria on a two-week media visit to China, explained that the development is not a happy story for international business transactions that involve the two countries.

“This is not a good way between Ghana government and StarTimes Group, as this is part

of a bilateral agreement and has a lot of influence on Chinese companies operating in Ghana and their confidence in the international investors.

“As a business entity, we have to obey international laws and contracts,” a Vice President of the company who wants to remain anonymous told the media in Beijing, China, during a tour of the company’s premises and modern facilities.
The Vice President argued that termination of the business contract between the two entities is a great loss to the company and China-Ghana bilateral relation — observing that the country has a very long way to go in terms of infrastructure but lacks funding.
The Vice President said in June 2011 government opened an international bidding whereby enterprises all over the world showed interest in the project. Seven companies left and StarTimes remained, then soon after StarTimes won the contract to execute the project.
In 2012 the contract was signed, and in 2014 the Eximbank of China finished its appraisal and approved the loan for commencement of the project.
“After signing of the DTT loan framework agreement between the two countries on April 10, 2015, he confirmed that the fund was released by the Chinese government through the Eximbank of China for the project to take off.”
But the contract was later abruptly terminated by government, and that after all attempts at using diplomatic means to resolve the impasse between the two countries failed to yield any fruit.
On July 21, 2015, StarTimes formally raised its arbitration issue with the International Commercial Court.
This has raised enormous concerns among the international investing community and technology experts about Ghana’s readiness to embrace modern technology while leveraging on bilateral relations and diplomacy.