By Iddi Yire, GNA
Kasoa (C/R), April 25, GNA – President John Dramani Mahama has inspected the ongoing dualisation of the 30km Kasoa-Winneba Road in the Central Region.
The project, which is being executed by Nag Fairmount Company Limited and expected to be completed either by the end of this year or by the end of the first quarter of 2027 includes asphaltic surfacing, pedestrian footbridges, underpasses, and a flyover to improve safety and mobility.
Speaking to the media at the end of the inspection tour, President Mahama expressed his satisfaction with the level of progress of work.
“I’ve inspected the road, I’ve seen the progress of work, the quality of work, and I think that the contractor has done a good job,” he stated.
“It reinforces our confidence in the capacity of Ghanaian contractors to be able to do world-class projects like any international contractor and so the progress of work is good and we’re hoping that we should be able to open through this whole stretch from Kasoa to Winneba by the end of the year or at least in the first quarter of next year.”
President Mahama said after they constructed the Kasoa overpass during his first term, it removed the bottleneck of traffic that had been at the toll booth, the toll bridges and then through Kasoa township but then it just freed them up and came and dumped them at Budumburam and so that became the new bottleneck.
He said the good thing about the current construction was that it opened the road all the way to Winneba and concurrently they had given the dualisation of Winneba to Mankesim to the same contractor.
It would open the road all the way to Mankesim and that they had also awarded Mankesim to Cape Coast, which means that for commuters going towards the capital of the Central Region, Cape Coast, they would have a very easy ride all the way to Cape Coast without going to punch up somewhere else.
President Mahama expressed the hope that in the next three to four weeks the contractor would be able to open the middle concourse of the Kasoa-Winneba Road so that all the traffic that was going directly towards Cape Coast or Winneba or Mankesim would not have to use the side roads.
“Central Region is an attractive place for investment in tourism but because of the constriction in the road network, it’s been very difficult for people to open up their investments towards the Central Region,” the President said.
“If you notice Tema all the way to Dawa, it’s attracting industries and investment. If we do this road network, it will allow some of the investors to begin to open factories in this corridor and that will create jobs for the local people here.”
President Mahama said his administration inherited the dualisation of the Kasoa-Winneba Road from the previous administration; stating that at the time they inherited it, the work had virtually stalled because the contractor was owed quite a lot of money and so they decided to put it under the Big Push infrastructure investment programme
“And the Big Push has money allocated. As I told the contractors, Big Push money is in abundance. So, the faster you work, the faster you get paid,” the President said.
“As we speak today, we don’t owe any Big Push contractor, one cedi. All the certificates they have brought, we have paid them. And so, as you work and you bring your certificates, we’ll keep paying you so that the projects can go at a faster pace.”
He said they would all be looking forward to coming back at the end of the year or early next year (2027) to officially commission the Kasoa-Winneba road.
He said, he noticed that the contractor was doing two kilometers of roads on the Winneba-Junction-Swedru Road; saying, “I would encourage that we scope that road too and open up the road to Swedru and even beyond Swedru to come back and link up with the main Accra-Kumasi Road to create alternatives for commuters to use any road that they feel comfortable with.”
Mr Kwami Governs Agbodza, the Minister of Roads and Highways, who accompanied the President, said a cardinal point of the project being executed under the Big Push programme was that every contractor who had raised work certificate on either an ongoing Big Push project or a new Big Push project had been settled.
“We don’t owe anybody one cedi. This means, you mean what you say about the big push. So Big Push contractors can be rest assured,” the Minister said.
“We are not only paying big push contractors, but we are also paying all the contractors as much as we can.”
GNA
Edited by Linda Asante Agyei