Deputy Ranking Member Bemoans Poor Roads

The Deputy Spokesperson on Roads and Transport, Mr Kwabena Owusu-Aduomi has attributed the delay in the payment of work done by road contractors as the reason for the poor nature of most of the roads in the country.

He stated that since January this year, the government had not paid contractors for work done on routine maintenance and wondered why the government was effecting payment even though a lot was being accrued from road toll collection.

Taking his turn in the ongoing debate on the 2012 Budget in Parliament, he said “our roads are bedeviled with potholes, large and deep ones to the extent that the Accra-Tema Motoway, which was constructed with reinforced concrete pavement, has been left to develop potholes”.

He said even though the government boasted of achieving 79.8 per cent for routine and periodic maintenance on trunk roads, the percentage did not reflect the actual maintenance works carried out across the country.

Mr Owusu-Aduomi said the calculation by the government was wrong because physical achievements cannot be combined with that of periodic maintenance.

“The Minister of Roads and Highways has not been able to give reasons on the floor of the House as to why despite increase in the rates of Road Toll, potholes are rampant on our roads, why roadsides are bushy and why gravel roads are severely corrugated”, he said.

Supporting his argument from the statistic of the Third Quarter Report of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA), he explained that only the government had only achieved 23 per cent grass cutting sides of the various roads in 2011, 19 per cent pothole patching and 33 per cent grading gravel.

Contributing to the debate, NDC MP for North Tongu, Mr Charles Hodogbey said the government had done well for including some pro-poor policies in the 2012 Budget.

He stated that government had targeted construct more school building to minimize the number of schools holding classes under trees while more classroom would also be constructed from about 335 senior high schools across the country.

In addition to these, Mr Hodogbey stated that the increase in the Capitation Grant and the free distribution of school uniform to some school pupils showed how the government was committed to the welfare of the vulnerable in the country.