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Sagnarigu, Ghana – Leading telecommunication company, MTN Ghana, has disclosed it invested over Gh¢200 million in the country’s economy in 2021.
The investments covered largely areas that would bring about great expansion and improvement in network coverage, voice calls and internet services among others.
Speaking at the 2021 Special Edition of MTN Editors’ Forum held in the Sagnarigu Municipality in the Northern Region on Thursday, Chief Corporate Services Officer, Samuel Koranteng, said the company inline with it’s 25th Anniversary Celebration this year, was also investing in the building of 120 new 2G and 3G sites as well as 607 new 4G sites.
He further indicated that, 1,322 sites had been modernised in readiness for 5G technology.
Mr Koranteng however lamented over the increasing fiber optic cable cuts which was gravely affecting the company’s smooth operations.
“There were 1,605 fiber optic cable cuts in 2020 and 1,684 in 2021 even though it’s still a month and some few weeks to the end of the year.
The top five regions leading in the fiber optic cable cutting include the Greater Accra Region, Ashanti Region,
Eastern Region, Western Region, and Oti Region (Eastern Corridor)”, he said.
According to him, the cost of repairing fiber optic cables that were persistently being cut off was taking a toll on the company’s operational expenses.
“For the period of 2019, it cost MTN Ghana Gh¢8,281,000.00 to repair all recorded fiber optic cables that were cut off across the country. In 2020, we spent Gh¢9,537,838.00 to repair those that were cut off.
The major cause of these fiber optic cable cutting in each of the top five regions mentioned earlier were road construction works, drain construction works and activities of private developers”, he explained.
The Chief Corporate Services Officer of MTN Ghana appealed to all stakeholders including road contractors to always try and inform them of any planned construction work to enable them forestall destruction to their fiber optic cables buried underground along major roads and highways in various towns and cities across the country.
The MTN Editors’ Forum is an annual programme that brings together editors and other senior journalists of various media houses including radio, television, newspaper and online. The programme creates a platform for management of MTN Ghana to receive feedback from journalists regarding the operational challenges of the company.
At the end of the forum, some journalists including the Chief Editor of A1 Radio in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region William Jallulah, Upper West Regional Correspondent of CitiTV/Citi FM Latif Mahama and the Chief Editor of SavannahNewsOnline Joseph Ziem were lucky to be picked during a raffle draw and were presented with gift items such as Samsung smartphones, shopping vouchers and souvenirs of MTN Ghana.
By Savannahnewsonline.com/Philip Liebs
