6,000km roads earmarked for completion before 2024 unattainable – Ebo Hewton

Former Chairman of Road Contractors, Ghana (ASROG) has opined that the initiative by the incumbent government to construct 6,000 kilometres of roads, 120 Bridges and 20 interchanges before 2024 is not attainable.

Joseph-Ebo-Hewton stated that “on paper, it sounds good, because at the end of the day, every Ghanaian wants to be comfortable driving, they don’t want to stay in traffic but government is already indebted to us.

He explained that “if you consider the fact that even after the end of the year 2020, government is owing road contractors over two billion Ghana cedis and the fact that the road fund yields just about 1.2 billion, making it a deficit of about 8 hundred million then what it means is that in the year 2021, they have already exceeded whatever that will come into the road fund account. Unless government goes to look for money elsewhere. “

Ebo Hewton’s assertion comes after the Minister of Roads and Highways disclosed that about 6,000km out of 11,000km of roads are earmarked for completion this year.

During a press conference, Sunday, May 23, Kwasi Amoako-Atta revealed that an amount of ¢7.827 billion is needed to ensure that a significant number of kilometres of roads across the country are tarred.

However, the former chairman of road contractors is of the view that the lack of financial resources needed to improve road networks in the country, will impede the completion of the project unless innovative ways of generating funds are implemented.

Nevertheless, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation at the Ministry of roads and highways, Ing Rosby Kome-Mensah explaining how government intends to finance the projects stated that about 81 critical roads identified in all the 16 regions will be”funded solely from Bank of Ghana (BOG).

“The COCOBOD is also funding a huge chunk of it and we have an ongoing programme that will also deliver over four hundred kilometres of road,” he added.