She said Ghanaians living in remote communities also deserved to be a part of the digitized global community, and that, extending telecommunications infrastructure to those areas was therefore necessary.

Mrs. Ekuful made the observation at Amantia in the Asante-Akim South Municipality, as part of her working visit to the Ashanti Region. The Minister is in the region to inspect project sites of the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) under the Rural Telephony Project (RTP).

She would also acquaint herself with the Community Information Centres (CICs) as well as the School Connectivity Projects, in eight districts in the region.  The Asante-Akim South Municipality has four of the RTPs sites at Amantia, Banka, Bankame-Sunkwa and Gyadam with two CICs at Banso and Obogu.

The Communication Minister said the Ministry through GIFEC was extending mobile telephone services to areas of the country where access were not adequately available.  She said there were areas where licensed operators were unwilling or unable to expand their networks to due to its low commercial viability, adding that, it was the responsibility of government to fill such gaps.

The objective of the RTP, she noted, was to achieve 100 per cent mobile telephone service coverage throughout the country and to increase telephone subscribership to as many citizens as possible.

She said the provision of computers under the School Connectivity Project would facilitate Information Communication Technology (ICT) studies, which was critical to quality education. Hopeful that the project would help raise standard of education in the area, she urged beneficiary schools to arrange with schools in surrounding communities to also use the facility as a means of reaching out to more pupils.

Mr. Abraham Kofi Asante, the Administrator of GIFEC, said a total of 100 RTP sites had been completed across the country with 29 located in the Ashanti Region.  He said the second phase would see the construction of 200 sites, out of which 30 would be in the Ashanti Region.

Osabarima Tweampomah III, Chief of Banka, commended government for the project, which he said, was a laudable intervention that had addressed many years of communication challenges.