Dr Benjamin Aggrey Ntim, the Minister of Communications on 3rd October, 2008 commissioned a Common Telecom facility at Fetentaa in the Brekum Municipality, where KASAPA and ONETOUCH have co-located.

The occasion was a realization of the provision of Universal Access to benefit the people of Fetentaa and its environs.

Below are excerpts of his speech:

“Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Government set up the Ghana Investment Fund for Telecommunications (GIFTEL) to mobilize funds for the provision of Universal Access to Telecommunications to underserved/unserved and remote communities.

The Fund hopes to achieve Universal Access to Telecommunications throughout all regions and communities in Ghana, by the year 2010. Another objective of the Fund is to facilitate the expansion of Telephone service penetration to at least 25% of our population by the year 2010.

It is a fact that, over 70% of our country’s population lives in the rural areas. As a Government we owe it as a duty to reach out to them with facilities that will enable them have access to the benefits of Telecommunications to impact positively on their lives

The realization of this commitment explains why the Government, through the Ministry of Communications and the Ghana Investment Fund for Telecommunications (GIFTEL) is funding the roll out of more than eighty (80) Common Telecommunications Facility Sites, throughout the country. These centres are meant to provide co-location access to telecom operators willing to operate in the beneficiary communities, provide telecommunications access and connectivity to the communities.

Thirty-nine (39) of these sites have been completed across the country. Funds for these sites I must emphasize have been from the Ghana Investment Fund for Telecommunications. (GIFTEL) at a cost of $125,000.00, this fund is part of proceeds from Telecom service providers which is ploughed back to expand services to the benefit of all Ghanaians particularly in the rural areas.

Mr. Chairman let me however use this opportunity to call on the Telecom and other Service Providers to take advantage to co-locate on these facilities to benefit from the economy of scale so communications penetration to rural areas will move faster and at affordable rate.

My commendations once again go to the Chiefs and People of Fetentaa for their goodwill and providing land for this project. I wish to take this opportunity to appeal to other traditional areas to make land available for projects of this nature. This is the only way they can make meaningful contributions to national development and for the development of their respective traditional areas.

Mr. Chairman, let me remind all of you gathered here today that, this is a Government facility. it is a common facility open to use by all the Telecom operators in the country. And to the good people of Fetentaa, the Common Telecommunications Site is to facilitate the provision of telephone access to this town and its environs. I therefore entreat you to help protect the facility and see it as your own project and not as KASAPA/MTN/TIGO/GT or that of Government.

Ladies and Gentlemen, finally, I want to end by saying that the Government of Ghana recognizes Universal Access to Telecommunications as a fundamental right of every citizen of this country. In this regard Government would continue to implement programmes under the ICT4AD and the Telecom policies to ensure that universal access to all the citizenry is achieved by 2015.

I wish to thank you all, not forgetting the members of the GIFTEL board of Trustee who found time off their busy schedules to join us in this commissioning ceremony.

On this note, I formally declare this Community Telecommunications Facility duly commissioned.

Thank you.”