The company said aside from the activities of thieves, road contractors and private developers had also been the cause of these cuts which lead to disruption of services and loss of revenues to the company.

Speaking at the media stakeholders meeting organised by the company in the Ashanti Region, the Acting Chief Enterprise Business Officer of MTN, Daniel Asare, observed that thieves were still damaging the company’s lines under the impression that the cables were made of copper.

However, he said they only realised that the cables were made of glass and useless to them after cutting them.

He said aside from the disruption of service to customers, the company had to spend more money to repair the damage caused, causing MTN to incur more losses.  

Mr Asare appealed to the public to draw the attention of the staff of the company whenever they saw something untoward happening on their installations.

He also reiterated the call on contractors, particularly Ghana Highways Authority, to also contact them whenever they were undertaking road construction projects to inform them about the location of their fibre optic lines.

He explained that, more often than not, the contractors failed to notify them before starting the project and only got to know of the project after damaging their lines.

Statistics

In the Ashanti Region alone last year, he said Ghana Water Company Limited and Electricity Company activities caused MTN 15 cuts while fires caused 33 cuts to its fibre optic lines.

Private developers also caused a total of 39 cuts while rodent activities contributed to 12 cuts.

From January to December last year, there were a total of 229 cuts in the activities of the company.

Social impact

During the year under review, Mr Asare said the company invested a total of GH¢93.2 million in its social impact projects throughout the country.

He said the company is also investing $25 million into the Ghana ICT Hub project that would empower the youth of this country.