The Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George, has identified the theft and tampering of batteries as one of the challenges disrupting connectivity at some rural telecommunications sites.
He has consequently appealed to traditional authorities, community leaders and young people to help protect the infrastructure to prevent avoidable network outages.
Mr George made the appeal during an inspection of rural telephony facilities in the Sekyere Afram Plains District of the Ashanti Region.
He said the ministry had received complaints from some Members of Parliament about connectivity sites that were not functioning, but investigations sometimes revealed that the outages were caused by problems that could be addressed locally.
According to him, facilities powered by solar energy were particularly vulnerable when batteries were stolen or tampered with.
“One of the key challenges we’ve noticed in some of the reports we’ve gotten has been the issue of theft of our batteries,” he said.
The minister explained that the theft of batteries could immediately affect the operation of a site, leaving residents without the network services the infrastructure was intended to provide.
He also identified electricity supply and technical connectivity problems among the issues that could affect the performance of rural telephony facilities.
Mr George said some sites connected to the Electricity Company of Ghana could experience interruptions linked to prepaid electricity or other power-related challenges.
He urged district authorities to pay closer attention to the maintenance and protection of the facilities, adding that the government was working to expand connectivity to communities that had historically lacked reliable network access.
The minister’s appeal comes as the government assesses rural telephony projects inherited from previous administrations.
He disclosed that GIFEC had been authorised to audit 2016 sites to establish whether they had been completed and were actively transmitting network traffic.
The exercise is also expected to help the ministry identify operational difficulties and determine the interventions needed to improve service delivery.
Mr George stressed that protecting the infrastructure was essential to ensuring that public investments in rural connectivity produced lasting benefits for communities.
He encouraged residents to treat the facilities as community assets and work with local authorities to safeguard them.
