Of the 300 villages projected to benefit from government’s satellite TV project, 285 have received devices installed and commissioned, Communications Minister,Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has said.
The Minister made this known when the Ministry took it turn at the Meet the Press on Thursday in Accra.
Government received grant of US$ 3 million from the China to implement the 300 Village Satellite TV project and the Ministry, in collaboration with the Chinese Embassy in Ghana launched it on September 26, 2018.
Owusu-Ekuful stated that as part of the arrangement government provided a tax waiver of GHc3million for the import devices meant for the project.
The project provides each village with two set of solar powered projector TV systems in two public viewing stations and one solar powered 32-inch digital TV integrated together.
These900 public viewing stations will enjoy free digital TV broadcasts.
Additionally, 20 households will also be supplied with Set-Top Boxes (STBs) each as part of Governments universal access policy. These 6000homes will have 6 months free viewing.
StarTimes is the contractor providing these services.
In all, 57 communities were selected from the Ashanti Region; 43 from the Eastern Region; 37 from the Greater Accra Region; and 35 from the Central Region.
The rest are 31 from the Brong Ahafo Region, while the Northern Region had 30villages selected, Western Region had 24 and Volta Region had 18.
Seventeen villages were selected from the Upper East Region and eight from the Upper West Region, totaling 300 communities.
By Joshua W. Amlanu