Road Construction Leading Cause of Fibre Cuts- Sam George
Road construction and excavation activities have been identified as the leading cause of fibre cuts in Ghana, accounting for 49 per cent of all incidents affecting telecommunications service quality.
The Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, Hon. Samuel Nartey George, disclosed this at the Government Accountability Series on September 7, under the theme “Network Resilience”.
According to a root cause analysis presented by the Minister, third-party and private developers account for 26 per cent of fibre cuts, while other causes, including mining, utilities and vandalism, account for the remaining 25 per cent.
The Minister said Government’s Big Push road infrastructure programme accounts for roughly half of all road-construction-related fibre cuts each month, attributing the trend to a lack of approved excavation drawings and poor site coordination, which he described as a key operational gap.
He noted that major corridors have seen an average of about 72 cuts a month since the start of the Big Push project.
Citing representative incidents, Mr George said the Winneba – Mankessim route suffered over 17 hours of outage, which degraded data experience across the middle belt; the Ho – Ziope route suffered over 19 hours of outage, which led to loss of resilience and degraded internet nationwide; and the Hwediem – Goaso route suffered over 9 hours of outage, degrading Quality of Service across Bono Ahafo, North and Western North Regions.
The fibre cut challenge continues to grow. Data from the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications shows the country recorded 3,900 cuts in 2021 and 10,034 in 2022. The figure was 6,344 in 2023 and 5,600 in 2024, before rising to 8,000 in 2025 and a projected 8,578 in 2026.
Already, 4,289 cuts have been recorded in the first half of 2026, with an average repair cost of US$2,045 per cut. The industry spent over US$20 million on repairs in 2025 alone.
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