The Roads and Highways Minister, Kwame Governs Agbodza, has directed the contractor working on the first phase of the Suame Interchange project in Kumasi, Rango Construction, to accelerate work, describing the current 5% progress as inadequate.

The Minister said although he understood the delays associated with the redesign and re-scoping of the project, the contractor and consultants must now work together to resolve outstanding design issues without further delays.

Speaking during an inspection of the project, Mr Agbodza urged the contractor, consultants and relevant government agencies to hold design-review meetings on site and resolve technical challenges within a day instead of allowing the process to take weeks.

“My humble advice is that the days when we ask contractors to produce designs, send it to the consultant's office or send it to highways or urban road office, after one week you review. The simple advice is that set a day for design review. Contractor, what do you want to do? This is my design.

“Sit down a whole day, review the amendment you want to make, make it there and then you move away. It takes too long a time. What is the point of doing a design and send it to the consultant and then you tell him it's weekend, I'm not around one week, when you can solve the same problem within a day.”

The Minister said the parties involved must prioritise finding immediate solutions to the outstanding design issues.

“Chief, the design is sent to you. Please call them back, sit down at the same meeting with them to solve the problem instead of giving us one week. We don't have one week to solve this problem.

“So call them tomorrow or Thursday or Friday, do the design review at one meeting, yourself, urban road and then the Rango, solve the problem on site. In fact, you can just mount a tent here. Mount a tent here on the site, solve the problem on site.

“So by the end of the week, let's look at your yard. Yes. It is always better when you are on site, when you are solving a problem.”

Mr Agbodza said working on site would allow the technical teams to better appreciate the practical realities of the project and arrive at solutions more quickly.

“Even just looking around, the design looks more realistic to you when you are on the site, instead of the office and other things. So we want to have that. Yes, I can see that we are just 5% of the interchange itself.

“I know, I can understand the reasons for the delay, the re-scoping and everything, but now we know what we want to do. Let's pick up. 5% is not enough, 2028 is too far for us to do this. Let's programme some of the things and see what we can do quickly.”

The Minister's comments come amid concerns over the pace of work on the interchange, which is expected to improve traffic flow and ease congestion around the Suame area of Kumasi.

The Ashanti Regional Urban Roads Director, Engineer Nana Poku Agyemang, said his office would work with the contractor to expedite discussions and ensure the project progresses quickly.

He explained that the consultant had indicated that some designs submitted by the contractor required review, a process that could take up to a week.

“If you remember, the consultant said that there were some designs that had been submitted that needed to be reviewed and it was going to take a week. But it was of the view that we here in Kumasi should take a day, sit down with the consultant, instead of sending it before we get the review, sit down and look at the things on site and make sure that we do the review within a day.

“And all these things, as you said, it's project slack. So what we are supposed to do, something that you are going to take a week, you do it in one day or two days, is going to bring completion dates down.”

Mr Agyemang said the project would also require a crash programme involving additional workers, logistics and working hours to recover lost time.

“And that's why he was of the view that once now we are even doing more of concrete, another steel, because he was also of the view that if we had contacted the local steel, but they have already procured. So we are going to look at a crash programme where they can work.

“I mean, now the economy is 24 hours, they can work day and night to crash the programme. Crash programme means that you are putting in more man hours and more logistics and more people to be able to, as it were, crash in a programme that should have taken a longer time. So we are going to do that and I think it's going to help all of us.”

He added that an early completion of key components of the project would help create momentum towards completing the first phase.

“Strategically, if we are able to, if the contractors hand over that project, the phase two, the roads, the underpasses and the overpasses, bridges, by the end of October, it's going to anneal to their benefits. And that will even ginger them on to make sure that they put in more hours and logistics to finish phase one in record time.”

Meanwhile, Mr Agbodza said the government does not intend to extend the completion deadline for the Kumasi Outer Ring Road project beyond 2027, unless there are justified circumstances.

He expressed concern that the contractor had so far focused largely on earthworks and urged the team to commence other activities, including concrete works, wherever access permits.