The leader of the National Democratic Congress in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu, has called for a structural audit of the performance of the constructor constructing the Tamale Interchange to grantee and ensure value for money. 

He called on the Supervising Consultant, the Ministry of Roads and Highway and the Department of Urban Road to ensure the audit is done.

Speaking on behalf of the four Members of Parliament from the area after a tour of the facility, the Tamale South MP said they were particularly concerned about the roundabout at the Tamale Central Mosque which is so wide thereby narrowing the road.

“Because the roundabout is so wide just imagine how heavy duty trucks or the long buses may be able to make a turn here,” he said.

Mr. Iddrisu said the position of the roundabout is skewed to the left from the Central Mosque and skewed to the right from the Picona road; adding that it may encourage traffic from the opposing directions to the use of the Central Mosque side and the roundabout.

He said the essence of the project was to reduce pedestrian, vehicular traffic and to allow free flow of persons, goods and services but noted that if the project is not completed timely and structurally to the request of the engineers as approved by Parliament, the city may suffer the same congestion of traffic to which the project was to solve.

Mr Iddrisu also raised concerns over drainage constructed in the area compared to other projects in Accra.

“The people in and around Ward F from Mba Zamigu School to Dakpem Fong are not satisfied with the quality of drainage works constructed. You saw the width of the concrete size here and we have seen other projects ongoing, you can compare what is going on here to what is happening at Obetsebi Lamptey Circle,” he said.

He also added that the road appears narrower around the STC, Melcom and Vodafone intersection stating that for drop offs around the business area, it could cause vehicular traffic.

“We are particularly concern about slow pace of work, the quality of work and structural problems associated with work vis a vis the 46 million dollars which was approved for the project,” Mr Iddrisu added.

He questioned why houses marked for demolition were not removed to create more space for the road.

“I just can’t understand why the houses here could not be demolished for the purposes of expanding the width of the road. I cannot accept it structurally, whoever was responsible whether the Department of Urban Roads or the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, the people here were ready to move and were told in advance that the road will affect that portion,” Mr. Iddrisu noted.

He said adequate compensation should have been paid to the people by government so that they can move to allow the road to be done well.

“It will not serve any useful purpose, you will just be celebrating the fact that it is the first major interchange in Tamale, but yes how much has it contributed to the reduction in congestion of traffic motor and pedestrian traffic particularly in the central business district,” he said.

Traders who had shops around the area appealed to government to honour its promise of compensating them; they alleged they were offered only one thousand and five hundred Ghana cedis