Road construction activities, private properties developers, galamsey activities as well as sand winning activities are some of the practices that cause fibre cuts across the country.
A total of about 5 million cedis is needed annually by the telecommunications giant, MTN Ghana, to fix the service problems due to the fibre cuts permanently.
These were stated by Western and Central Regional Technical Manager of Telecommunication giants, MTN Ghana Limited, Mr. Teddy Hayford Acquah at this year’s edition of the MTN Editors Forum and Interaction with Stakeholders at Cape Coast in the Central Region.
He bemoaned the rate at which fibre cuts are happening across the country stating that the central region alone has recorded 124 fibre cuts adding that this figure could rise to 170.
“The year hasn’t ended yet and if I look at how the numbers are playing out, we may hit into the 170s if something drastic is not done. And that is not good news”, he intimated.
Mr. Acquah noted that as the telecommunications giant in the country, they are doing everything possible to ensure that customers of MYN enjoy quality service delivery and ready to work with all stakeholders to find a lasting solution to the phenomenon of fibre cuts.
He said “as for MTN, for us and from where I sit as an engineer, the team are ready to work with all the stakeholders to make sure that if we get enough head room, enough heads-up time for us to go and work on our cables before a road constructions work starts”.
He indicated that this is more proactive than a constructor just getting up and going to site and start damaging the cables.
He, therefore, appealed to the media to assist in educating the public on fibre cuts even as they continue to engage contractors and other key government agencies to better the situation.
“The number of interventions that as a business we have put on the ground to mitigate this particular challenge, one of them is leveraging on media fora to share with you some of these challenges and also employ you that you use your various platforms to drive the awareness, sensitization about this phenomenon of fibre cut and how we can actually work together for us to reduce the numbers,” stated Mr. Acquah.
Accordingly, he said, steps have also been taken to engage the road agencies like the Department of Urban Roads, the Ghana Highways Authority and contractors also on these challenges because they are key stakeholders.
“Most of the road constructions activities that we see happening along the road are coming from their outfits so we have started serious engagement with them. We have deepened our engagements this time around to impress on the various road constructors before they go to the ground to start any activity, they should be able to engage MTN in good time for the company to take proactive measures to put our cables in a safer place”.
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Meanwhile, Acting Corporate Services Executive of MTN Ghana, Georgina Asare Fiagbenu says the company is committing $ 1 billion to expand and improve network coverage and service quality nationwide, especially in rural and underserved areas from now to 2025.
She said MTN intends to lead digital solutions for Africa’s progress and that the company’s activities are geared towards achieving that ambition, dubbed; “Ambition 2025”.
Our mission is to lead the delivery of a bold new digital world and also, we believe that everybody deserves modern connected life and so if everybody deserves modern connected life, then we have to expand our network, we have to continue to invest to ensure that we are able to reach everyone” she said.
Mrs. Fiagbenu hinted that earlier in the year, MTN was adjudged as the fastest data providers in the country adding that a lot of benchmarking have been done for both voice and data and MTN Ghana is number one.
She said “but we don’t want to stop there because we want to lead digital solutions for Africa’s problems. And so, you’ll realize that we are doing a lot of investments drives, we are doing a lot to transform all our channels. And so hitherto, there was a lot of concentration on using our USSD channels but we are pushing a lot into our digital channels”.
The Acting Corporate Services Executive stated that MTN is now digitalizing all of its offerings including the business and enterprise offerings and “all the investments into our digital platforms are to improve customer service”.
She was however quick to add that, physically, MTN also need to do a lot to ensure that it is able to serve its customers wherever they are.
The MTN Editor’s forum is one of the annual events the company uses to engage, share key highlights of its performances, and plans with the public and solicit feedback from them with the aim of improving service delivery to customers.
SOURCE: Anthony Sasu Ayisadu/Ibahim Adam/ATLFM NEWS
