The abandoned Navrongo Multipurpose Youth Resource Centre, commonly known as the Navrongo Sports Stadium, represents an avoidable waste of limited public resources and a troubling failure to protect state investments.

It was launched on May 14, 2018, under the National Youth Authority’s programme to construct multipurpose youth resource centres across the country and was expected to be completed within approximately nine months and included a FIFA-standard football pitch with about 5,000 seats, an eight-lane athletics track, ICT and entrepreneurship centres, career-development facilities, multipurpose courts, offices, washrooms, a restaurant, floodlights and other supporting infrastructure, a clear conceived project for sports development, youth training, and employment creation.

Six years on, the facility remains uncompleted. Consequently, portions of the project have deteriorated, seats have been damaged, vegetation has taken over parts of the site, and some sections have reportedly suffered fire damage.

The contractor is said to have confirmed that a contractual dispute is before the courts, although the full nature of the dispute has not been publicly disclosed.

A completed stadium and youth centre could host football matches, athletics competitions, cultural programmes, conferences and youth-development activities. It could generate revenue, support local businesses, create employment and help identify sporting talent. An uncompleted facility does none of these things.

Ghana is therefore left with resources locked up in such uncompleted projects. Consequently, a considerable double financial burden is placed on the government because of increases in the cost of materials and services. Aside from the loss of the productive use of resources already committed, additional resources will eventually have to be spent to remobilise contractors before the projects can be completed.

Adequate funding was clearly not secured for the youth resource center before construction commenced. Ghana should not commence capital projects merely because it can finance the first phase.

There must be a credible medium-term funding arrangement covering the major phases of construction. The source of funding, payment schedule, expected completion period, and provisions for inflation and unforeseen costs should be clearly established.

When the government lacks the resources to complete ten youth centres simultaneously, it would be prudent to complete a smaller number before commencing additional ones. A few completed and operational projects will serve the public more effectively than a larger number of uncompleted projects.

The absence of protected or dedicated funding also exposes contractors and the state to disputes. A contractor who has completed certified work but has not been paid may suspend construction or commence legal proceedings. The government may then face interest charges, damages, and further legal expenses. Meanwhile, the abandoned structure continues to deteriorate.

Public officials frequently cut the sod for projects without demonstrating full cost has been identified and secured. Initial allocations may permit contractors to mobilise and commence visible structural work, but when subsequent payments are delayed or unavailable, construction stops.

This approach may produce attractive photographs and political publicity at the beginning, but it does not necessarily produce completed public infrastructure.

This appears to be part of the difficulty surrounding the Navrongo project.

In August 2022, the Navro-Pio appealed to the government to complete the facility, stressing that its completion would benefit Navrongo and the entire Upper East Region.

For as long as the project remains uncompleted, young athletes are denied the opportunity to train on appropriate grounds, entrepreneurship, career development services and other opportunities that formed a part of the original plan equally fails to come to fruition.

These are losses that may not be captured in government books but remain real losses to project locations and Ghana at large.

Repeated political assurances that construction would resume or that the facility would be completed by a particular date have not produced a completed operational facility. Indeed, public infrastructure cannot and should not be completed through campaign promises alone. Appropriation of sufficient funds, a realistic construction timetable and continuous monitoring would.  

The uncompleted Navrongo Youth Resource Centre and other abandoned projects across Ghana are a monument to a damaging culture in which governments find money to start projects but not the discipline to complete them.

Public funds since 2018 have remained trapped in an unusable facility while the structures deteriorate, and the cost of completion increases. Meanwhile, the people for whom the centre was constructed continue to be denied its benefits.

Once public funds have been committed to a properly authorised project, an incoming administration has a duty to assess whether completing it represents value for money.

Where substantial work has already been done, and the project remains useful, completion will ordinarily be more economical than allowing the structure to deteriorate while commencing a new project elsewhere.

The powers that be should see to the completion of this project.

By: Jonathan Balinia Adda, Esq.

Houston, Texas.