Akufo-Addo’s 1,800 KM Roads Made Of Asphalt Overlays Not Newly Built – Contractor

A Kumasi–based road contractor has negated the president’s assertions that his government has constructed 1,800 kilometres of roads across the country.

President Nana Akufo-Addo, at the beginning of the year, in his sessional address to Parliament, announced that his government had constructed 1,800 kilometres of roads across the country.

The road contractor in arguing his point stated that 80 per cent of the roads contained in the president’s claims are asphalt overlays.

According to the road contractor, the figure bandied about by the president may be true because many of the roads contained in the president’s assertions were asphalt overlays.

Mr Akwasi Yeboah said asphalt overlays are done on already existing roads and not wholly built roads in the country.

“It is the reason many Ghanaians contested they have not seen that number of roads as contained in the president’s State of the Nation Address (SONA),” he noted.

He stressed that many of these asphalt overlays were done in residential areas of the Accra metropolis and Kumasi metropolis.

“In Kumasi alone, the Manhyia South Constituency with the Minister for Energy, Mathew Opoku Prempeh as the Member of Parliament (MP), was the largest beneficiary of the asphalt overlays,” Mr Yeboah put forth.

Giving a breaking down of the president’s assertion, Mr Yeboah said going by the president’s figures means that each of the 275 constituencies across the country should have at least 39 kilometres of roads.

“As we speak no such feat exists in many of these constituencies across the country,” he narrated.

“It is the reason many of the residents in Kwabre East, Barikese among others in the Ashanti Region demonstrated for not seeing anything in terms of roads in their respective areas,” he said.

He noted that 39 kilometres of roads can journey from the Kumasi-Suame roundabout to the Techiman area in the Bono Region.

Mr Yeboah made these revelations in an interview with Mr Emmanuel Quarshie (The Hitman), host of Accra 100.5 FM’s Ghana Yensom morning show on Tuesday, September 20, 2022.

“Mr Hitman, let me use your medium this morning to correct this notion that has been lingering all this while in relation to roads constructed by this government,” he said.

He commended the president for his quest in ensuring many of the asphalt overlays were done.

He was quick to add that in less than two years, potholes have begun to emerge on many of the roads thereby blaming his colleague contractors for not being forthright in their work.

He said 90 per cent of contractors in the country are not truthful with their jobs.

He added that the contractors did the same thing during John Mahama’s era by building the same asphalt overlays which have diminished.

He disclosed that many recent contractors are doing shoddy jobs compared to roads built in the days of former president J.J Rawlings.

“Some roads built in Rawlings’ era lasted more than 30 years but what are we seeing today? A road is built and in less than two years you start seeing pot holes.

“Many of these roads built by Nana Akufo-Addo are crying for repair works,” he said.