Musician and political activist A Plus( Kwame Asare Obeng) has argued that money raised from tax on fuel a year can construct 1600km of road on a yearly basis, the 1600km of road is more than enough to make the perilous Accra-Kumasi road a six-lane highway to reduce carnage on the road.
He pointed out that the inability of Government to provide adequate road infrastructure is due to high GDP to debt levels as well as corruption and mismanagement and not a lack of financial resources.
“Ghana uses 5 billion litres of fuel every year. On every litre, we pay 48 pesewas as road fund levy. 48p×5 billion litres is 2.4 billion cedis. We are told that each kilometre of asphalt cost 1.5 million Ghana cedis. Divide 2.4 billion by 1.5 million and you’ll get 1600km of road.
This means that every year, Ghana should be able to build at least 1600km of road from the road fund alone.
Let’s assume that money from the road fund will be used to build 6 lane roads. (Three lanes on each side) 1600 divided by 6 is a little over 266km; Accra to Kumasi is just 248km. We can build more than that every year from just the road fund. The Accra Tema motorway which is 4 lanes is just 19km. If it is built into a 6 Lane highway with the road fund, we should be able to build 14 motorways every year. Why don’t we have good roads? Why can’t we fix the motorway? Because our debt to GDP is 83% and our government expenditure is evil!! As for corruption, management and willfully causing financial loss to the state, let’s not go there,” he explained.
A Plus insisted that Ghana has enough funds to do roads but corruption and mismanagement are responsible for the poor road infrastructure in the country.
“Ghana is not broke. Yɛ te sika so papa; adwen bɔne ne abrɔ nti, ɛkɔm de yɛn!” He concluded.
Government declared 2020 and 2021 Year of Roads and Second Year of Roads respectively but not much has been seen in terms of a marked improvement in road construction. Every now and then, demonstrations are staged by aggrieved Persons calling for their roads to be fixed.
Source: MyNewsGh.com
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