Mr Kwesi Amoako-Atta, Roads and Highways Minister
Barely a year into its second tenure, the government has announced a rollout of massive development projects, comprising bridges, railways, roads and hospitals.
Put together, these are more than enumerated in the Manifesto that won the incumbent New Patriotic Party, under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, two elections on the trot.
Over the weekend, the Minister for Roads and Highways announced the government was rolling out a programme for the construction of 11,000 kilometres of road, with more than half of that to be completed this year.
While a huge chunk of these infrastructural projects are in the northern part of the country, ostensibly because of the focus on the part of government to live out the Africa Continental Free Trade Area vision, the Central, Eastern and Western regions also have their share of the pie.
Roads infrastructure situation
The Minister cited roads and interchanges as being a necessary part of the huge architecture in fast-tracking communication, enhancing productivity, creating jobs and improving livelihoods along the beneficiary communities.
Considering the litany of complaints from vulnerable communities which produce foodstuffs and cocoa, for instance, we are assured that food security goals will be sustained, or even enhanced, by the construction, modernisation and rehabilitation of our wobbly bridge infrastructure.
As we would admit, the quality of our roads, particularly the inter-city network, has been too poor for comfort and convenience. Little wonder that we have, on account of the poor levels of maintenance and designs, experienced unnecessary accidents this year alone.
Prudent use of resources
Unfortunately, in our part of the world, we keep constructing road networks every ten or fifteen years, saddling ourselves in the process with costs that we could avoid if we were more visionary and development-focused.
For instance, since the PNDC era through JA Kufuor till today, we have been doing and re-doing the Accra-Kumasi road, with little hope that the spate of accidents would minimise.
That, of course, is aside of the roads being punctured over time with potholes that pop up because of poor designs that fail to take cognisance of the landscape, as we have seen in the Accra-Kasoa highway.
Monitoring, maintenance
It is the hope of the Daily Statesman that relevant agencies and experts who have been tasked to develop, design and construct these projects will put Ghana first and stick to government’s philosophy of prudent use of state resources.
This is important as leadership strives to account to the people, and also fight corruption at various levels of economic and development activity.
It is no secret that in rolling out projects, as has been announced, there are consultancy costs that ensure that quality control tenets are applied. Consultants cannot afford to fail us and complain later that advice was spurned by contractors or the government.
As for maintenance, it’s no secret that our culture in that regard is poor – from how we handle furniture and fixtures in government bungalows through lackadaisical approach to maintenance of vehicles to the same mentality in how we abandon our urban roads and highways – the story is the same.
A stitch in time
While part of the responsibility of governments is to execute infrastructural development, we sometimes tend to wait too long before initiating or speeding up our programmes for rolling out schools, hospitals, roads, markets, among others.
The worst is that even after we have commissioned projects, the next phase of ensuring that the project lives on, which is maintenance, is ignored, culminating in unnecessary costs to the innocent taxpayer.
It is the opinion of the Daily Statesman that in showcasing Ghana as a seat of AfCFTA and touted Gateway to Africa, our road network and infrastructure will truly reflect the fact that we have arrived as a fast-growing economy and post-COVID global player and partner.
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