Government to scale down on roads construction, works to proceed on already secured projects – Deputy Roads Minister

According to Stephen Pambiin Jalulah, deputy minister for roads and highways, the government is unable to contract for as many new roads as it had planned due to the current economic difficulties.

The inference is that while we are paying contractors to come in and complete ongoing projects, we are unable to start new ones. Let me add that not all of the money for the roads comes from the Ghanaian government.

The government builds and maintains roads with the help of taxpayers, but we also work with development partners, Mr. Jalulah said.

Jalulah, who is also MP for Pru West, was Speaking on The Probe on JoyNews, and said that the Roads Ministry can only scale down construction because the budget for all ministries has been cut.

He was responding to questions on an assessment of President Akufo-Addo’s track record on Roads and Highways. The assessment was raised following the President’s fears while delivering the State of the Nation Address that although he would have wished that every single community had a well-constructed road, the resources are not enough.

But Mr Jalulah told programme host Blessed Sogah that despite the challenges and lack of resources, the government is committed to ensuring that the new road facilities which were approved and funding granted are completed.

“We cannot scale up the construction and we can only scale down…but there will be new roads just that we will scale down, if we planned 10 roads we cannot do that we may do five depending on…,” the Deputy Roads Minister said.

“The challenge we have is real and it’s not only Ghana, but this is just a short while. I can say that in a short while things will improve and before then we have planned projects and we say that we don’t have enough resources, we look at the amount of traffic a road gets and we do that,” he said.

Mr Jalulah added that the government is hoping to complete seven new interchanges by the end of 2024.