Government establishes 400 telephony sites

In connecting Ghana through digitisation and communication, the Government has established 400 telephony sites to provide voice signals to 2,000 unserved communities to bridge the digital divide and ensure nationwide coverage by 2020.

Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister, said in 2019, the Government would deploy an additional 600 telephony sites to provide voice signals to 1800 communities where coverage was limited or non-existent due to the inability of existing license operators to expand their networks.

He said the construction of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Park to provide multi-tenant infrastructure at Dawa through a Public Private Partnership arrangement was ongoing and was expected to be completed in 2019.

Mr Ofori-Atta made these remarks in his presentation of the 2019 Budget Statement and Financial Policy of the Government to Parliament on Thursday.

“A Concessionaire has been selected to assume responsibility of ECG's core business of power distribution and shall be required to invest half a billion dollars in the network to improve efficiency and reduce commercial and technical losses,” he stated.

He noted that the rural electrification programme would be continued in 2019 using electrical conductors and cables, exclusively from local manufacturing companies.

He said the move was to support the local manufacturing industry and boost employment.

“Government undertakes to complete the extension of electricity to the whole country and is committed to working with local banks and entrepreneurs that are ready to invest in the energy sector,” he said.

Mr Ofori-Atta said in line with the Government’s belief in investing in human capital, education was about to witness the largest capital expenditure in the sector for any single year in the last 50 years.

He said the Government would continue to ensure that those investments led to an increase.