By Benjamin Adamafio Commey, GNA
Accra, Sept. 7, GNA – Road construction activities have accounted for 49 per cent of the 8,578 fibre cuts recorded in Ghana so far this year, Mr Samuel Nartey George, the Minister of Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations, disclosed on Monday.
He said illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, had also contributed significantly to the frequent fibre cuts, accounting for 25 per cent of the cuts, while private developers and other activities contributed to the remaining 26 per cent.
The frequent damage to fibre infrastructure, the Minister said, was imposing significant costs on telecommunications operators and affecting the quality and reliability of digital services across the country.
Speaking at the Government’s Accountability Series in Accra, Mr George said the telecommunications industry was spending about US$20 million this year to repair damaged fibre.
“That’s money that without the fibre cut, we would have used to build new sites,” he said.
He explained that the scale of the problem was particularly concerning as Ghana transitioned from a voice-driven telecommunications market to one increasingly dependent on data services.
Mr George noted that smartphone penetration had risen from 27.5 per cent a decade ago to 71.8 per cent as of June 2026, resulting in increased demand for network capacity.
He cited several instances where fibre damage caused prolonged outages and significant degradation of telecommunications services, one along the Winneba-Mankessim road, where major road construction was ongoing, resulted in a 17-hour outage, affecting communications from Winneba towards Cape Coast.
A similar incident caused a 19-hour outage in another affected enclave, while three separate routes carrying telecommunications capacity to northern Ghana were reportedly cut within a two-hour period on the same day.
“People complain, the network is bad here. It’s not because there is no service, but because the fibre has been cut,” he said.
To address the problem, Mr George said the National Communications Authority (NCA) had developed a coordination framework that would required road agencies and contractors to engage telecommunications operators before excavation works began.
The Ministry of Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations and the Ministry of Roads and Highways had also prepared a joint policy proposal for Cabinet consideration, requiring road projects to incorporate dedicated fibre chambers, he noted.
“We want to have this coordination framework through the NCA and the Ghana Highways Authority… to ensure that whenever a contractor is deployed to a site, he knows the call points to go to,” he said.
The Minister also called for enforceable penalties against contractors and other actors who failed to comply with the proposed framework.
Beyond fibre damage, Mr George identified instability in the national power grid and rapid subscriber growth as other major pressures affecting Ghana’s telecommunications infrastructure.
He said the Ministry was working with the NCA, the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) and mobile network operators to upgrade ageing rural 2G and 3G infrastructure to 4G-capable networks.
The interventions, he said, were intended to provide rural communities with reliable broadband services to support mobile money, digital agriculture, e-learning, telemedicine and other digital services.
“We cannot fix a decade of neglect in one year,” Mr George said, adding that the Government was nevertheless taking deliberate steps to improve network capacity and resilience.
GNA
Edited by Agnes Boye-Doe
Reporter: Benjamin Adamafio Commey
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