A fierce battle is going on between authorities in Ghana and the management of Telekom Malaysia.

TM promised to invest in Ghana in order to improve and modernize the African country's crumbling telephone network.

It invested several million dollars in Ghana Telecom after the privatization of this company.

One of the goals was to triple the number of Ghana's telephone lines. But it all went wrong. In the beginning of the year 2000 TM paid up to 50 million dollars to purchase a stake of 15 percent in the African company. Part of the deal was an installation of 40,000 landlines in 2002.

But a currency devaluation in Ghana and a change of government in Accra changed this investment into a loss for Telekom Malaysia of 100 million dollars.

The Malaysian company was forced to buy telecom equipment in US dollars but the revenues were in Ghanaian cedi.

Telekom Malaysia is now going to sue the government and wants its money returned. The Ghanaian government is awaiting international arbitration