TRANSCRIPT OF REMARKS BY PRESIDENT JOHN MAHAMA AFTER AN INSPECTION TOUR OF THE 17KM AWOSHIE- POKUASE ROAD PROJECT. Well done. I am satisfied with the pace of work on the road and I think that these are the kind of solutions we need. As Accra is growing as a city, we must make road interventions that allow people to have alternatives. I think that is what this is all about so that we are able to ease congestion. This used to be a very remote road, I remember I had come on it from the Awoshie end before and I am just amazed about the transformation that has taken place here. If this road is opened up it will ease traffic at Achimota and going into Circle because then those who live in Dansoman and Mallam and other places coming from Kumasi instead of going towards Achimota will just turn off right here and continue to Cape Coast or wherever they want to go. These are the kind of interventions we need to make so that the city can absorb the growing volumes of traffic we are beginning to see. After we do this, the next logical one will be to open the road all the way to the Ritz junction in Madina. I can see Libi [The African Development Bank representative] nodding her head and I am just giving you an advanced warning that to make this road meaningful we will have to open it up to the Ritz junction so that the traffic can flow through. Those coming from the Southern part of the city wanting to go to the Northern part don’t need to come through Tetteh Quarshie, they can just take the road through Ritz and off to Aburi or Madina or Adenta or wherever they want to go. But I think this is a major intervention especially the idea behind it: a development corridor where the road just doesn’t pass through a community without affecting their lives. Fourteen schools along this road to be rebuilt into modern schools will make a major impact on the communities; providing them with water, a new market with a hospital, accident centre and all the interventions that are taking place. This is one of the most significant road projects that we have done in this country and so let me thank the African Development Bank and Agence Française de Dévelopment for the partnership with the Ministry of Roads and Highways. We look forward to those partnerships in the future as we think about the road sector improvement program. Roads have become an issue of social tension in our country today. Remember what happened in Ashaiman and several other places? So, one of the major interventions that government is going to do is to improve the transport sector because every country that has developed had to open up the country so that goods and services and human beings can move freely across the country. Over the next four years government is going to make a major intervention in the transport sector in the railways and in the roads. We are going to open up the roads significantly so that it will add to the economic growth that we are seeing but I think that the contractors have done a good job. I am looking forward to come again and see how far we have gone and eventually looking forward to commissioning this project. Thank you. [Monday, August 05, 2013 @ AWOSHIE- POKUASE ROAD]
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 10:48:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015