Roads in Ghana tell a story of pain, anguish, agony, corruption, wastefulness and leadership paralysis to say the least. Many years ago, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of the Republic of Ghana thought it wise to link the capital, Accra, to the Port City of Tema.

For him, the motorway was key to the huge industrialization plan of his government. From the importation and exports of goods and more that made perfect sense. He was vilified for the huge expense into the project.

This road has since gone on to serve thousands of motorists and carted all kinds of goods on a daily basis till this day. He was smart and clever enough to appreciate the fact that longevity of the road was key to the development in terms of making funds available to take care of other projects. The motorway was thus constructed with concrete.

I was on that stretch the other day and to my dismay, potholes that had emerged were being fixed with bitumen. I am not an engineer but I found it so nauseating and downright poor. How are we not fixing that crater with another bit of concrete, I asked?

I guess we all know the answer. An opportunity for perpetual thievery. Fix it with bitumen, letit come off in a few weeks and spend more inflated cash on the same project. We are wonderful people.

THE POKUASE-NSAWAM STRETCH

The Pokuase-Nsawam stretch has been in the news this week for all the shameful reasons that make you feel sad to be Ghanaian. This is by far the busiest road in Ghana.

A road that connects the North to the South. A road that connects the two biggest cities in Ghana. Accra and Kumasi, 68 years after Independence, various governments have shamefully failed to realize the value and the relevance of that road and have made little or no effort in dealing with that challenge.

As someone who resides on that stretch and call the Ashanti Region my root, I use this facility very often.

TRAFFIC BOOM

Anyone who is familiar this road over the last couple of decades would first of all notice the huge volume of cars and trucks on that road. Common sense would have informed governments and planners over the years that this natural increase needed a plan to go with it.

Expansion of the road to multiple lanes and the funding required should have been thought of decades ago, not at all Instead, many of our visionless leaders have rather chosen the path of empty vitriolic with no reasonable plan to raise funds for the project.

Leadership only realizes the importance of these roads when its about time for elections and take all of us for fools with some absurd contracts to complete the roads in an unreasonable time with little or no sustainable funds for that.

The end is what we see of that sad spectacle on that stretch. Population growth and settlement expansions has led to an explosion in human numbers and businesses between Ofankor barrier all the way to Nsawam.

How the planners of the city did not anticipate this is shockingly frightening. Now the residents of communities on this stretch and beyond have to go through multiple challenges on a daily basis to move to and for wherever they might be headed.

THE HEALTH CHALLENGE

As a result of the stop and stop nature of the project, motorists have to endure the consumption of dusty particles leading to all kinds of respiratory ailments. Leadership, driving in their luxurious 4-wheelers obviously do not fill this pinch.

Having used the stretch all these years, its incongruous that not much has been done about that till this day. Spending hours on end on this stretch also affects the rest period of residents.

Very little time in bed after the long hustle and bustle is not great for the young and definitely not the elderly. As for productivity at work places, the least said that, the better.

THE FINANCIAL CONVERSATION

Funds that could have been used to take care of other essential needs are now being channeled into the procurement of drugs and car parts. And oh, most cars are now spending far more time away from their owners. The Mechanics are milking motorists loads.

Also, longer stays on these crazy traffic driven stretches because of the bad nature of the roads affects the turn around time of goods and services which invariably impacts pricing. If trucks that are carting goods from the south to the north and vice-versa are taking way no longer than normal to get to their destinations, one conversation is constant Price.

THE BIGGER PICTURE Is there any particular reason why as a state, very little attention is paid to other means of transport like rail, water and air transport?

GREED AND CORRUPTION

Politicians and technocrats have consistently found a way to siphon funds through inflated contracts and deliberate recurrent expenditure. Sometimes one gets the feeling that most road contracts if not all of them are tied to the tenure of successive administrations.

In a few years, the roads are so bad and awarded as contracts with elements within the administration at the time benefitting from huge kickbacks.

Again, contractors are also said to have to settle all kinds of people in the contract- awarding process. How are we going o have quality roads when the contractor does not have access to 100% of the funds to execute the contracts?

The result is the often shoddy works that are executed with the ‘unavailable’ funding for road construction one would have thought that as a country, we would have been seriously considering other modes of transport and its viability. It doesn’t make any sense whatever so a resident of Dawhenya to spend 5-7 hours on the road daily just to get to work and back. That’s madness a whole Ministry of Railways was set up for 8 years to address a part of the problem.

There is very little to show for all the investment that has been sun in there. Sadly though, someone thought of an insane and despicable idea of building sky trains which led to the wanton dissipation of $2m, and oh, if you care to know, investments in other areas would proceed at a snails’ pace due to taboo like decisions.

Have you ever bordered to find out the owners of the huge trucks and buses that ply the length and breadth of this country? When you do, you will appreciate why there is a focus on roads to facilitate their business rather than other means of transport. A classic case in point is the stretch from Takoradi to Tarkwa.

Common sense would tell anyone that carting all the minerals including the raw material from all the mines kilometers away would be best served with rail rather than road as the huge trucks would obliterate the asphalt in no time.

Over $100m has been sunk into the construction of the new road but these huge trucks are going back forth every single day. You bet this road would be up for contract in a few years with new beneficiaries. Some smart leaders we have in this country.

CONCLUSION

Without a concerted effort in dealing with this shame, our roads would continue to remind us of all the reasons why this country is making progress only in an Arithmetic state and not a Geometric one.

Our wicked, corrupt, self-centered and greedy elements in Leadership are only pretending to be dealing with situation. Brace yourself my dear reader.