The Director of the Building and Roads Research Institute, Dr. Daniel Asenso-Gyambibi, has commended government’s initiative to embrace Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in the construction of major highways across the country.

According to him, going the PPP way is long overdue, and would prove highly beneficial to Ghana’s economy.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, he said, “Going the PPP way to build our road infrastructure is the best way; in fact we have no other alternative.”

Citing Kenya’s newly constructed express way, which is said to have reduced traffic hours from three hours to 20 minutes, Dr. Asenso-Gyambibi noted that the high toll fare is only a small sacrifice to accessing quality, safe and convenient roads.

He touted the benefits such roads will even pose for the average car user in terms of buying fuel.

“And you have said it all, I mean all the points you made. Look at the Kenya example, reducing traffic hours from three hours to 20 minutes; do we know the amount of fuel that you’re going to save? If I’m going to drive on that road and pay a toll of say 30 cedis, and save two hours 40 minutes to get to my destination, why wouldn’t I do that?

“I move from Kumasi to Accra at least three times or two times in a month, and if I have to travel from Accra to Kumasi and spend four and half hours on the road, if I get a private person to build a very good road, good concrete road that will take me two and half hours to go to Accra and spend 30 cedis that’s about 4 dollars or something to Accra I will do that because that road will be safe, that road will be economical and it will save me time and convenience.

“So for me, this is the way to go, we have even spent too much, we have wasted too much time on it,” he said.