Ursula Owusu-Ekuful
THE MINISTER of Communications and Digitalisation (MoCD), Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has commissioned three Rural Telephony sites in the Sekyere East district in the Ashanti Region.
The beneficiary communities are Anumso, Brofoyedru-Awaham and Bouya.
Prior to the commissioning of the sites, the beneficiary communities had no access to telecommunication network, making them journey several kilometres to nearby communities or climb trees to make calls.
The facilities formed part of the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project (GRT&DIP) of the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), which seeks to connect deprived communities to telecommunication services.
Commissioning the sites at separate occasions, Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful said the project was a confirmation of the government’s commitment to improve the livelihoods of all citizens, bring governance closer to the people, and bridge the digital gap between the urban and rural communities.
According to her, extending the telecommunication networks to the communities would go a long way to open up the area.
She disclosed that the government has started the construction of 2,016 cell sites under the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project to provide basic telephone voice and data connectivity to underserved communities.
“It is very critical for us if we want to deepen our digital economy to prioritise connectivity, and that is what this government has done, and I have no doubt that when Dr. Bawumia takes over from President Nana Akufo-Addo and is sworn into office on January 7, 2025, this rural digital telephony inclusion project will be expanded to cover all the other areas that currently do not have connectivity,” she said.
She urged to the beneficiary communities to protect the sites from unscrupulous individuals from stealing some components of the facilities and bemoaning the recent vandalisms that is taking place across the country on the rural telephony networks.
For her part, Mrs. Eva Andoh-Poku, Administrator of GIFEC, indicated that GRT&DIP seeks to extend mobile telephone service coverage to areas where access is limited and where licensed operators have not been able or unwilling to expand due to commercial constraints.
According to her, the government of Ghana under the leadership of Nana Akufo Addo secured funding in 2019 to deploy 2,016 rural telephony sites as part of the GRT&DIP.
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Sekyere East, Osei Adiyiah, thanked the minister and GIFEC for the gesture and pledged his outfit’s commitment to take proper care of the facilities.
FROM David Afum, Kumasi