The Ghana Ministry of Communications through the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), announced a €155 million project to boost basic telephony services in rural areas.
In a statement, GIFEC said it secured the money from state-owned enterprise China National Technical Import and Export Corporation (CNTIC) to finance the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion project, which will be supplied with Huawei gear.
As part of the project, more than 1,000 cell sites will be built across the country by the end of the year.
Three million Ghanaians will be connected through the project to “reduce the gap in the digital divide” in underserved communities, in particular people from the Atwereboana in the Ashanti Region.
President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said: “I’m reliably informed that the Huawei Rural Stark Technology being used for this project was developed due to the incessant pressure from the dynamic Minister of Communications, the Honourable Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, and it entails some 50 per cent savings on the cost of traditional cell sites. This makes the project both economically and financially feasible and will, therefore, generate good returns on investment”.
Around 30 per cent of Ghana’s population live in rural areas with little or no access to IT and communications services.