Ghana Does Not Need More Roads Without Trust

Across Ghana today, a dangerous national mood is emerging. Many citizens no longer trust political promises, regardless of how ambitious or attractive government projects may appear.

Roads are important. Infrastructure matters. Development requires investment in transportation, energy, schools, hospitals, and public facilities. No serious nation can progress without them. Yet Ghana faces a deeper crisis that asphalt alone cannot solve — the crisis of public trust.

For many citizens, the central question is no longer how many roads are being built. The real question has become whether the system behind these projects can be trusted.

This is why the current national conversation surrounding accountability, corruption, and political responsibility matters so deeply. Many Ghanaians expected the administration of John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress government to demonstrate a stronger commitment to discipline, institutional accountability, and visible consequences for wrongdoing. Instead, public frustration continues to grow over what many perceive as slow, weak, or selective responses to major governance concerns.

One issue particularly troubling many citizens is the growing perception that some individuals who were previously questioned, investigated, or even detained over alleged wrongdoing are now moving freely through the streets of Accra without any clear public explanation regarding what changed. In some public gatherings and political events, these same individuals are seen dancing, celebrating, and receiving loud cheers from supporters while ordinary citizens watch in confusion.

For many serious-minded Ghanaians, such scenes raise deeply uncomfortable questions. People want to know what happened to the investigations, whether the accusations were false, whether cases were abandoned, or whether justice was truly served. Unfortunately, the silence surrounding many of these developments creates the impression that politics has once again overtaken accountability.

The problem is not merely about the individuals involved. It is about the message these scenes send to the nation. When citizens repeatedly witness allegations disappearing without transparent explanation, public trust begins to collapse. The ordinary Ghanaian who wakes up every morning to work honestly, obey the law, and contribute to national development starts to question whether integrity still matters in the country.

This psychological damage is extremely dangerous for national development. No serious citizen will feel motivated to give his or her best to the nation when media platforms constantly project images suggesting that power can erase consequences and political influence can neutralize accountability. Young people observing these developments may gradually conclude that success in Ghana depends not on honesty, competence, sacrifice, or patriotism, but on political protection and connections.

Once citizens lose faith in fairness, patriotism itself begins to weaken.

Development is not built only with cement, machines, and contracts. Development is built on trust. Citizens willingly support reforms and national programs when they believe that leaders are sincere, institutions are fair, and public resources are protected. But once trust collapses, every project becomes suspicious, every contract is questioned, and every announcement is interpreted politically.

This is the challenge Ghana faces today.
Many ordinary Ghanaians increasingly believe that powerful individuals can misuse public resources and still walk freely without consequences. Whether these perceptions are entirely accurate or not, perception itself matters greatly in governance. Once citizens lose confidence in accountability systems, even genuine development efforts begin to lose credibility.

A government may build highways and modern infrastructure, but if people believe corruption surrounds procurement processes, inflated contracts, abandoned projects, or selective justice, the roads themselves cannot restore national confidence.

This is why accountability must come before grand development narratives.

Countries that achieved sustainable transformation understood this principle clearly. Singapore did not first build trust through infrastructure alone; it built trust through discipline, institutional seriousness, and visible consequences for abuse of office. Japan rebuilt itself after devastation because citizens trusted institutions and believed their sacrifices would not be stolen by corruption or political favoritism.

Ghana’s greatest development challenge today may not even be financial. It may be psychological and institutional. Citizens are tired of hearing promises without seeing accountability. They are tired of political blame games, investigations without conclusions, and scandals that quietly disappear with time.

In such an atmosphere, even good projects lose public legitimacy.

The government must therefore understand that restoring trust is itself a development project — perhaps the most important one. Before asking citizens to celebrate new roads and infrastructure projects, leaders must first convince the nation that public money is protected, wrongdoing is punished fairly, institutions work transparently, and political influence does not place individuals above the law.

Without this moral foundation, development risks becoming cosmetic rather than transformational.

Ghana does not merely need roads. Ghana needs a trustworthy national system.

A road can connect cities. But only trust can connect citizens to their government. And without that connection, no nation can move forward sustainably.

Isaac Yaw Asiedu PhD
Author: Shifting Mindsets for Sustainable Development in Africa: Political Economy Perspective

Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK 2025

https://rethinkingafrica.org

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-0364-6339-7