Opanin Johnny Blukoo-Allotey, in your article entitled, “The ‘New’ Spintext Road; A Chance To Get It Right!” that was posted on the 28th November, 2008 features web page of www.ghanaeb.com, you say: "We shouldn’t hear; as an engineer who worked on the design of Tetteh-Quarshie lamented; “we had cash constraints”.
You then go on that "Government must find the cash to build this road and make it function as it should. This road should take us into the future. Those involved in its design and construction should be able to boast to their grandchildren that they were part of it!"
My reaction: Perfect project to put out to international tender to get a good contractor (who must be made to work with a Ghanaian joint-venture partner and local professionals, as part of the terms of the contract!) who wants a self-financed build-operate-and-transfer road project in Africa from which it can earn 25 years of tax-free toll revenue.
If we finance some of our major infrastructural projects that way, we will not have to worry about such national assets deteriorating because they are poorly maintained - and our leaders’ penchant for getting kickbacks that result in examples of poor quality road projects will quickly become a thing of the past.
By definition, a self-financed infrastructural project executed by a construction firm, which will also operate it in order to recoup its investment, is one executed to the highest standards - to save money that would otherwise be expended in needless maintenance and repairs: on a road it needs to keep open round the clock to earn it revenue from toll charges!
Incidentally, I live near a classic example of a poorly-executed infrastructural project - being the atrocious quality of that portion of the Accra-Mallam road that I see daily, when I go for my regular evening walk in the part of McCarthy Hill where I live.
Alas, it has countless numbers of broken and cracked drainage covers, endless metres of pavement railings meant to stop pedestrians from falling into the big uncovered gutters lining the access road to houses off the Accra-Cape Coast road, and a central reservation cement surface that is already begining to crack.
Hmmm, Ghana – entiye yeawiye paa, enia? Asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
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