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 party’s Policy Committee on Communications and Digitalization is demanding details on the number of sites constructed, connected and currently operational, as well as those that have been completed but remain inactive.
The demand follows a briefing by Communications Minister Samuel Nartey George on the state of 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 claims that the previous government neglected rural connectivity.
The NPP said the project was launched in 2020 with a €155 million facility from China EXIM Bank and a target of 2,016 sites expected to serve between three and four million people in underserved communities.
According to the party, 1,961 sites had been constructed by January 2025, when the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration handed over power.
It added that equipment was available for about 400 additional sites.
However, the NPP raised concerns about the pace of deployment under the current administration, claiming that no new rural telephony site was constructed in 2025 despite the available equipment.
It also alleged that more of the completed and activated sites are now non-operational compared with the situation at the time of the handover.
The party further disputed claims that 46 sites in hard-to-reach communities could not technically be connected.
It said a satellite hub at the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT had been upgraded to provide backhaul services to those communities.
According to the NPP, the sites remain unconnected because the contracted hub service has not been taken up and paid for, making the issue a commercial and administrative one rather than a technical challenge.
While welcoming the government’s plan to upgrade rural telephony infrastructure to 4G, the party urged the Ministry to first prioritise connecting completed sites and restoring services that have gone offline.
It is also demanding a deployment schedule for the remaining sites, the operational status of the satellite hub, and details of the proposed 4G upgrade, including its cost, financing and implementation timeline.
The NPP further wants the Ministry and the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) to brief Parliament’s Select Committee on Communications on the project’s status.
The party said the issues should be addressed using verifiable data rather than competing claims.
