MTN Ghana lost ¢39m in 4-months to fibre cable cuts

The Corporate Services Executive of MTN Ghana, Sam Koranteng has said that the company has suffered 382 incidents of fibre cable cuts in the first quarter of this year alone.

He said that the Ashanti Region recorded the highest number of fibre cuts of 159, representing 41 percent, above Western, Greater Accra and Central regions.

Mr Koranteng, blamed the situation on construction works, among other factors.

He added that this leads to the loss in revenue, reduced taxes to the government and poor services for customers.

According to MTN Ghana, it lost almost GHC39 million in revenue between October 2018 and February 2019, due to such destructions.

It costs the company almost GHC7,000 to repair each fibre optic cable destroyed.

Meanwhile, according to Mr Koranteng, the state lost over GHC17 million in regulatory fees and tax due to fibre cable cuts.

"It causes revenue loss. From October last year to February this year when we did the calculations of the down times of the network, which resulted in revenue loss, we have approximately lost about ¢39 million in terms of revenue.

“If we had been able to realise that ¢39 million, in terms of taxes and regulatory fees, we have lost that money as well. For regulatory fees, we estimate it at ¢7,800 million that would have gone to NCA and GIFEC; in terms of the government of Ghana, it came up to GCH16 million."

According to the Telecoms Chamber, the destruction of underground fibre optic cables cost mobile telephony operators in excess of $3 million, last year.

Mr Koranteng told Kumasi-based Nhyira FM that MTN has been recording numerous fibre cuts in a week.

"Sometimes we suffer double fibre cuts; triple fibre cuts. On the 9th of April for example, we suffered five (fibre cuts) which brought down a significant part of this country. On the 12th of April, it went on to six fibre cuts almost simultaneously."

He called on the public to support telcos in the fight against fibre cuts.