Ghana’s leading telecommunication group, MTN Ghana, has called on the general public to aid in the prevention of fibre cuts across the country.
According to the chief executive officer of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh, the group has recorded over 900 fibre cuts between January and May 2022 across the country.
The phenomenon, he lamented, has over the years affected the provision and rapid expansion of its network as “we are spending too much money fixing the things that we have already spent money on.”
Adadevoh further called for more education and attention to be drawn to the menace.
“When they cut the fibre and you take your phone and you’re about to make a call, the network is down, and you’ll complain about MTN’s network, but that’s not the problem,” he said. “The problem is, we are not looking after the assets of telecommunication companies to make sure that the network can be strong unless we deploy a military force to look after our fibre, but that is not possible. “
“So we need us as Ghanaians to support us. That is all we need. We need the media to support us. To let people understand that when you’re building a new house and you see some cables, you don’t just cut them to build your wall,” he said at the 2022 editors and stakeholders’ forum in Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region.
The Ashanti Region, according to the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications, recorded 43.5% of cable and cell-site-equipment theft in the Ashanti Region, with the Greater Accra Region recording 15.7% of total theft cases recorded across the country.
The CEO further hinted at plans by the telecommunication giant to extend its 4G network to all 260 districts across the country by the end of 2022.
SIM card re-registration
On the issue of the SIM card re-registration exercise, Selorm Adadevoh revealed that about 16.8 million customers, representing 60% of their customers, have linked their Ghana cards, with only 10.8 million of them, representing 40%, biometrically capturing their data.
He said MTN is in talks with relevant stakeholders to facilitate the distribution of the Ghana cards to allow more users to partake in the exercise.
“There’s a challenge with how many of our customers have the National ID card.” And that’s an area we’re looking at; how we can support the NIA to make sure customers can get the cards to do the registration. We’re doing some partnerships with the NIA so that those who don’t have the ID cards, especially those in remote areas, can get the cards so we can facilitate the process for them”
Ghanaians have till 31 July 2022 to re-register their SIM cards with their respective network providers.
The Minister of Communication and Digitalization has emphasised that the Ministry would not extend the set deadline for the nationwide SIM card registration exercise.
Loretta Timah
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