The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has challenged claims about the state of Ghana’s rural telephony programme under previous administrations.

The party insists that the record shows significant investment in expanding telecommunications access to underserved communities.

In a statement signed by the Chairman of the NPP Policy Co-ordination Committee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the party said the Ghana Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project was launched in 2020, contrary to claims suggesting it began in 2022.

The party said the project was financed through a €155 million facility from China EXIM Bank and had an approved target of 2,016 sites to serve between three and four million people in unserved and underserved communities.

The NPP further stated that an earlier phase of the programme resulted in 430 rural sites being constructed and activated between 2017 and 2018, connecting approximately 700,000 people.

According to the party, the Akufo-Addo and Bawumia administration subsequently expanded the programme, leaving behind 1,961 constructed sites at the point of the January 2025 handover, as well as equipment in stock for the deployment of another 400 sites.

“On rural telephony, the record does not support a description of neglect, and the figures are a matter of public documentation rather than opinion,” the statement said.

The party also rejected suggestions that some sites constructed in 2024 could not technically be connected, pointing to a satellite hub at the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT which it said had been upgraded and prepared to provide backhaul for 46 hard-to-reach communities.

“The 46 communities concerned are not unreachable. They are unconnected because the contracted hub service has not been taken up and paid for,” it stated, arguing that the issue was commercial and administrative rather than technical.

The NPP has consequently called on the Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations and the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) to publish a comprehensive status report on the project within 30 days.

It wants details on operational sites, the deployment of the remaining equipment, the satellite hub, and the proposed 4G upgrade, as well as a briefing for Parliament’s Select Committee on Communications.

“Our interest is a working rural network,” the party said, adding that rural communities were entitled to both telecommunications service and a clear account of when they would receive it.