The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has issued a 30‑day ultimatum to the Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations to publish a comprehensive status report on the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project. The party’s Policy Committee on Communications and Digitalization seeks details on how many sites have been constructed, connected and are currently operational, as well as those that remain out of service.
The call follows a briefing by Communication Minister Samuel Nartey George on rural connectivity and plans to upgrade rural telephony sites to at least 4G. In a statement signed by NPP Policy Co‑ordination Committee Chairman Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the party rejected the notion that the previous decade was marked by neglect in rural connectivity, arguing that significant investments were made under the Akufo‑Addo/Bawumia administration.
According to the NPP, the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project 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. By the time the previous government handed over power in January 2025, 1,961 sites had been constructed, with equipment ready for an additional 400 sites.
The party raised concerns that no new rural telephony site was built in 2025 despite the availability of equipment for about 400 sites, and that a greater proportion of constructed and activated sites are now non‑operational than at handover. It also disputed claims that 46 sites deployed in hard‑to‑reach communities cannot technically be connected, arguing that the satellite hub at the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT has been upgraded and is ready to provide backhaul services.
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 lapsed services. The party is 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 NPP 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.
