Ghana, two other countries achieve inter-connectivity
Mr Ernest Attuquaye Armah, Deputy Minister for Communications, on Tuesday cut the sod to start a 120-km fiber cable project from Bolgatanga through Bawku to Senkase in Northern Togo.
The project is in fulfillment of Ghana’s commitment to joining the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) to develop broadband linkages connecting main towns and capitals in Africa by 2012.
The Deputy Minister said the project, which is to be executed by three contractors, would not only give real meaning to Ghana’s quest for regional integration through effective deployment of ICTs, but would also boost its associated trade and commerce as well as strengthen bilateral relations.
The project involved the establishment of a number of cell sites along the route to ensure an improved telecommunication services within and beyond.
Mr Armah said the extension of the fibre from Bolgatanga to Senkase offered an automatic connectivity with both Burkina Faso and Togo which were already interconnected at Senkase.
The Deputy Minister said Government was committed to ensuring that every region enjoyed its fair share of the national development and the Better Ghana Agenda and that government was collaborating with Vodafone Wholesale to undertake the project.
He appealed to chiefs and people living along communities where the cables would be routed to lend support for early completion of the project.
Mr. Armah also thanked the Burkina Faso counterparts for ensuring that the project came to fruition after the ministerial declarations between Burkina Faso and Ghana in 2009 to start the fibre optic connectivity.
Mr. Edwin Provencal, Managing Director of Vodafone Wholesale, whose speech was read by his deputy, Mr Kenneth Asare, said Vodafone was the only service provider partnering government to connect the less deprived areas to information superhighway.
He thanked government for the support, saying the partnership would create an ICT infrastructure in-country that would eventually open up unlimited opportunities for the citizenry, adding that his outfit remained committed to ensuring that Ghanaians reaped the full benefit of ICT usage and continue to promote digital literacy.
Mr. Mohammed Morchid, Managing Director, ONATEL-SA, Burkina Faso attested that communication between the two countries suffered direct and reliable link over the years hoping that the project would reduce the high cost and transit rights to establish calls.
He said the project would stimulate the traffic of the sub region and enable ONATEL-SA to access SAT 3-point in Accra and to other submarine cables along the Ghana coast.
ONATEL-SA in Burkina Faso is a subsidiary of group Maroc Telecom just as SOTELMA in Mali.
The ceremony was attended by chiefs, students from selected second cycle schools, and other communication related organizations including delegations from the Burkina Faso side.
Source: GNA