The CEO of MTN Ghana, Ebenezer Twum Asante, has called on the country's telecom regulator the NCA to review free Over-the-Top (OTT) calls on social media platforms - this after the country announced it risked losing over US$77-million in revenue to SIM box fraud over the past two years.

Asante believes these OTT calls do telecommunication service providers more harm than global calls terminated by fraudsters.

The senior MTN executive said a review is necessary to protect telcos in the country and prevent revenue loss in taxes payable by these companies to the state.

According to law enforcement officials, which worked with IT/telecom firm Subah Infosolutions as part of a task force, 30 people allegedly involved in the practice have been arrested this year and they estimated that the state would have lost $77,379,000 million if the fraudsters had not been stopped.

In February mobile anti-fraud and revenue protection specialist Revector published that there is an increasing trend for Voice over IP (VoIP) apps to divert and terminate calls from telecom networks to receive call connecting fees which would otherwise be collected by the telecom network.

Ghana features a high level of active participation in OTT services, especially Whatsapp.

Two years ago, CEO of Whatsapp, Jan Koum, said he and Co-founder, Brian Acton were amazed by the way their product is being used in Ghana, particularly by university students who use the platform to engage with lecturers and compare notes at group levels.

MTN's Asante suggested that the NCA consider following measures taken by some Middle East countries to stop OTT calls by patching them through traditional channels to forestall putting money in the purse of foreign companies while host nations are deprived of necessary revenue.

"I think the regulator in our country can also do same," Asante said, stressing the need for the NCA to be proactive as social media platforms continue to grow globally.

UAE's Du and Etisalat last month restricted all OTT functions – including Whatsapp and Viber calls –to their networks. Despite the action being described as an "international embarrassment", the two telcos said that any company wishing to provide such services should discuss the matter with them.

The debate over what to do about OTT services has been raging in some African countries for some time. Morocco banned free VoIP calls in February, while Vodacom and MTN have been calling for more stringent regulation in South Africa.

In Kenya, the Film Classification Board differs with the country's telecom regulator over Netflix. KFCB wants Netflix regulated and subjected to Kenya film classifications before its content would be distributed in Kenya while the communications authority thinks otherwise.