Партия NPP требует от министерства связи отчета о ходе проекта цифровизации сельских районов Ганы

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has given the Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations 30 days to publish a comprehensive status report on the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project. The NPP’s Policy Committee on Communications and Digitalization is demanding detailed information on the number of sites constructed, connected and currently operational, as well as those that have been built but remain out of service. The call follows a briefing by the Communication Minister, Samuel Nartey George, on the state of rural connectivity and the government’s plans to upgrade rural telephony sites to at least 4G. In a statement signed by the Chairman of the NPP Policy Co-ordination Committee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the party rejected the characterization of the previous decade as one of neglect in rural connectivity, arguing that the records show significant investments were made under the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration. The NPP said the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project was launched in 2020, with a €155 million facility from the China EXIM Bank and an approved target of 2,016 sites to serve between three and four million people in underserved communities. According to the party, 1,961 sites had been constructed by the time the previous government handed over power in January 2025, with equipment available for the deployment of an additional 400 sites. The party is, however, raising concerns over the pace of deployment since the change in government, claiming that no new rural telephony site was constructed in 2025 despite the availability of equipment for about 400 sites. It further alleged that a greater proportion of the constructed and activated sites are now non-operational than they were at the time of the handover. The NPP also disputed claims that 46 sites deployed in hard-to-reach communities cannot technically be connected. It said a satellite hub at the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT had been upgraded and prepared to provide backhaul services to the affected communities. The party argued that the sites remain unconnected because the contracted hub service has not been taken up and paid for, describing the situation as a commercial and administrative matter rather than a technical limitation. While welcoming the government’s intention to upgrade rural telephony infrastructure to 4G, the NPP cautioned that the upgrade should not take precedence over connecting already-constructed sites and restoring services that have lapsed. It is therefore demanding that the Ministry and the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) publish a deployment schedule for the remaining sites, the operational status of the satellite hub and a detailed plan for the proposed 4G upgrade, including its cost, financing and implementation timeline. The party also wants the Ministry to brief Parliament’s Select Committee on Communications on the status of the project, insisting that the matter should be resolved through verifiable data rather than competing public claims.