The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is demanding answers over the continued lack of connectivity in 46 hard-to-reach communities covered by Ghana’s Rural Telephony and Digital Inclusion Project, despite infrastructure it says is already in place to provide service.

The party claims a satellite hub at the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT has been upgraded, tested and prepared to provide backhaul connectivity for the 46 sites.

According to the NPP, the facility was procured under a valid contract and has additional capacity to serve more locations, raising questions about why the affected communities remain without connectivity.

“The 46 communities concerned are not unreachable,” the party said in a statement signed by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Chairman of its Policy Co-ordination Committee.

It argued that the communities remain unconnected because the contracted hub service has not been taken up and paid for.

“That is a commercial and administrative decision, not a technical constraint, and the distinction matters to the citizens affected,” the NPP said.

NPP supports 4G upgrade but wants existing sites connected

The NPP said it was not opposed to the government’s plans to upgrade rural telephony infrastructure to 4G.

It noted that equipment deployed under the previous administration was designed to be upgradeable and argued that existing infrastructure should first be connected and made operational before a broader upgrade programme is undertaken.

“The first obligation is to connect the sites that have already been built and paid for, to deploy the equipment already in stock, and to restore service where it has lapsed,” it stated.

Party demands contractual details and timeline

The NPP is consequently asking the Ministry responsible for communications and the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) to disclose the current contractual and operational status of the satellite hub.

It also wants the Ministry and GIFEC to indicate whether the 46 sites will be connected and provide a definite timeline for restoring or commencing service.

The party further wants the matter referred to Parliament’s Select Committee on Communications for scrutiny, arguing that the facts should be established through technical and contractual evidence rather than competing public claims.

“Ghanaians living in the communities concerned are entitled to service, and to a clear account of when they will receive it,” the NPP said.