50% Rural telephony project completed - GIFEC

The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) has completed 50 per cent of its Internet and mobile connectivity programme in some rural areas in the country.

• Ama Pomaa Boateng (left), Deputy Minister of Communications and Digitalisation; Prince Ofosu Sefah (middle), CEO of GIFEC, and Yahaya Zakaria Osman, Director of Operations, GIFEC, at the Public Accounts Committee sitting in Accra

So far, 1,008 of the 2,016 mobile sites under the programme, dubbed: Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project (GRT&DIP), has been done. According to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GIFEC, Prince Ofosu Sefah, 473 of the mobile sites were active and delivering voice and data services to people.

He said equipment for the construction of the remaining sites was already in the country, with GIFEC awaiting funding for its deployment.

Agreement

The project forms part of GIFEC’s flagship rural telephony programme which is funded by the government through a strategic agreement with Huawei and the China National Technical Import & Export Corporation (CNTIC).

The project, which commenced in 2020, is also supported by the China EXIM Bank and seeks to establish 2,016 rural telephony sites in rural communities across the country and provide mobile network coverage for about 3.4 million people.

GIFEC, which is under the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation, is supervising the implementation of the project, with the sector Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, as the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of GIFEC.

Commendation

When GIFEC appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament recently, Mr Sefah assured the committee that efforts were being made to resolve all technical difficulties being encountered in the implementation of the project to ensure that the remaining sites were built and activated this year. During the PAC sitting, a member of the committee and Member of Parliament for Offinso South, Isaac Yaw Opoku, commended GIFEC for posting 7.2 per cent increase in income surplus over expenditure, compared to the previous year, a situation which significantly improved its liquidity.

“The financial position is very good. Non-current assets increased by 14.5 per cent, current assets by 20.1 per cent.