Minister opens bidding process for beautification of roads and highways

The Minister of Roads and Highways has lived up to his promise in an interview with Eye on Port where he vowed to open a bidding process for the beautification of all major roads and highways in the country.

About two weeks after the interview with Eye on Port, the Ministry of Roads and Highways published an advert in the Daily Graphic to compile the names of prospective companies who have the expertise to undertake works in roads line marking, construction of pedestrian guard rails, construction of crush barriers, pot-hole patching grassing and vegetation control.

The poor vegetation of Ghana’s roads has been a major concern in the country.

Roads and Highways in most of Ghana’s cities have poorly maintained landscaping with medians left overgrown, lawns of major roundabouts not maintained and sometimes with burnt lawns instead of neatly mowing them thus making the roads and highways in Ghana’s cities unattractive.

A former Minister of Roads and Highways Alhaji Inusa Fuseini sometime admitted that the unkempt nature of Ghana’s highways may even be a contributing factor to accidents on the roads and highways.

“Because of the nature of our roads, because of how we have left the roads unkempt, I am tempted to believe that people speed on the road to get away with the unsightly nature of the road. But if you put architectural designs on the road, plant trees and flowers, there will be so much beauty surrounding the road that people will take their time to savour this beauty and not speed away from the road,” the former Minister explained.

So during the inauguration of the improved motorway runabout, we sought to find out how the Ministry of Roads and Highways intends to maintain the beauty of the roundabout.

The Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako -Atta said “we are going to get dedicated contractors to manage it.”

Indeed exactly two weeks after the assurance, the Ministry of Roads and Highways moved to publish expression of interest for the maintenance and landscaping of the roads, highways and roundabouts.

As we strive to make Ghana the gateway to Trade in the sub-region, it will be well-meaning to ensure that as a country, we provide all the necessary well maintained infrastructure to boost our capacity, enhance our look and feel and not only keep us ahead of our competing nations but also give the citizenry a cause to be proud.