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 GHANA HIGHWAYS AUTHORITY
Interview with
Mr. B.L.T. Sakibu,
Chief Executive
Contact:
ghiihu P.O.Box 1641, Accra, GHANA
Tel: (233) 21 665 571
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The Ghana Highway Authority was founded in 1974 under the NRC decree 298. Could you tell us what the state of the road network was like before this period and therefore what the necessity was to found the G.H.A.?
Before the formation of the G.H.A. the Public Works Department was in charge of all public works in Ghana and if you go back another 10 years before 1974 the Public Works included electricity, water, roads, and all the public works that you could think of. But as Ghana started growing there was the need to cover more areas and people realized that getting only the P.W.D. to handle all these facilities of ours was going to create problems in the future. Gradually they started breaking up the P.W.D. The water was taken out, Electricity Corporation was created out of the P.W.D., and then we were left with the roads and the building part of the Public Works. Around 1974 the building and the road sections were separated into the Ghana Highway Authority and A.E.S, the Architectural and Engineering Services Corporation. That was done mainly to allow for greater focus, so that we could all concentrate more on what we all specialize in and be able to give Ghana better roads, better buildings. We have come a long way. We are better off now than in 1974 when Highway was created, there is greater focus and we are able to produce better roads than we were doing before.
How many kilometers of roads were there in 1974?
In 1974 we had what we have now. The network had not grown in terms of length except the feeder road. But with the trunk road we still have around 14,000 kilometers.
Could you tell me what the vision of Ghana Highway Authority is?
Our main vision is to provide a safe, reliable trunk road network system integrated with the feeder roads, the city roads and so on to allow goods and services to be moved around at minimum cost.
As you said before, the G.H.A. is charged with building trunk roads, you have 14,000 kilometers of road, you also build bridges. How many bridges have you built so far?
We have so many and some of them are so beautiful. We have really not counted them but all roads that matter in Ghana have got good bridges on them. If we weigh this against about 30 years back, taking for instance Tamale to Bolgatanga which is only about 100 miles, it could take you about 2 days to make that journey. Because from Bolga you come to Pwalugu which is 15 miles away and there is no bridge. Then there is Nasia which is 50 miles both ways, there is no bridge so if you are not lucky you will sleep there. Then you come to Nabogo 24 miles from Tamale. Today it takes you less than 1 ½ hours because all those points have bridges. We have built an uncountable number of bridges. But all trunk roads that matter in Ghana have been bridged. There are just a few peripheral ones that we are now focusing on.
So do you maintain all these roads and bridges as well?
Yes we do.
How are you funded? How do you find the money to do all this work?
Since 1985 the government has established what we call the road fund. But prior to that we were getting all the funding straight from the budget.
Straight from which budget?
What we call the consolidated fund. The central government budget and in1985 we had the road fund put in place. But the road fund was not generating all the money that was needed so we were supplementing what ever was coming in to the road fund with some budgetary input until January 1996 when with the help of the World Bank the government finally put in place a reformed road fund. With the reformed road fund every year the main inflow which is from the fuel levy is increased by 1US cent on a liter. In 1995 the total inflow into the road fund was about 17 billion cedis. In 1996 when the reformed road fund was established we jumped from 17 to 60 billion and then in 1997 we went to 100 billion, in 1998 it was 180 billion. This year we are taking about 219 billion and by the year 2002 we are hoping to get to about 500 or 600 billion.
With all this new money that you are getting every year, what are the new projects that you have?
I have to say that our road fund is dedicated to road maintenance. We can now cover a greater section of our roads. The message is that we are now in a position to maintain whatever network we have.
Are you building roads as well or are you just maintaining roads?
We have not built any road in the last 20 years. Ghana has a network which is sufficient for her needs and I think in the next 20 years or more we can use this network adequately without building new ones. What we will be doing is rehabilitating those sections of the network that have become bad. And that has been the strategy for some time now. But this rehabilitation could be very heavy. For instance the Tamale to Paga road was rehabilitated at a cost of about $98 million.
| 0 How long is that stretch of road?
0 About 185 kilometers. And we have just completed the Tema-Akosombo stretch which is about 78 kilometers. The reason for this is that in the last 20 to 25 years we have brought in very heavy vehicles and all the network has been in place for the past 30 to 40 years. Our present network was inherited at independence. But what we inherited was for lighter vehicles so when the articulators came into the system they started breaking up the network and this is why we are building up the network to be able to handle the kind of heavy axles that we have now.
1 When we traveled to the Northern Region we saw with our own eyes the state of some of the roads. What efforts is the G.H.A. implementing to rehabilitate the roads in the more remote parts of the country?
1 We now have a computer network that allows us on a yearly basis to visit every road that we have and to see their current state. From that we can know the next set of roads that need to be rehabilitated, depending on how much money we have. Now we can see at a glance the state of all our roads and we can rehabilitate them in order of priority. Now we have a lot of money so we can cover a greater field. By the year 2005 we should have 70 percent of our network in good state. Presently we have about 30 percent of it in good state.
2 So you are well on track for the Vision 2020 criteria.
2 I think so.
3 Are you looking for any investors to come and help you?
3 That has been our hope.
4 In which areas can they help you out?
4 In rehabilitating the key network: for example on the Accra to Kumasi network, I heard that some sections have remained the same since independence. We have managed to put some sections right. The Accra to Cape Coast road was constructed in 1962 and it has not been rehabilitated up till now. That road is completely gone. We got support from the Japanese government to rehabilitate that stretch of road at a cost of about $85 million. The money that we require to rehabilitate these roads are so huge that the budget alone cannot support it, not unless you get donors and foreign companies to help you.
In order to attract foreign help the government came up with the idea of B.O.T. that is Build, Operate and Transfer. The government has virtually put into the open all the legs of the network for outsiders to come and pick and choose.
5 Have you had much response?
5 We have had inquiries so far but none has picked and funded any of the legs here.
What we mean by BOT is that you can now bring your private capital, choose any portion of the leg, develop it to a reasonable standard, toll it over a period of about 20 to 30 years and then recover your capital and of course your profit. Then at the end of it all you hand it over to the government.
6 Are you confident about the state of Ghana’s roads for the future?
6 Very confident. Now that we have a road fund we can rehabilitate as many roads as possible and maintain them. If the road is breaking up we can come in and rehabilitate. We are very confident that we can get our roads into better state.
7 How long have you been Chief Executive of G.H.A.?
7 About 6 years.
8 What has been your greatest achievement since you have been at the top of the G.H.A.?
8 First of all we have been able to attract a lot more fund. Between now and next year we should get 5 new projects into the pipeline and at this rate I think we are heading towards our goal. We have managed to attract money from the German government, O.E.C.F., Danida, African Development Bank and the World Bank. With 5 projects I think we have done very well because some people cannot get one project off the ground in a year.
9 Forbes Magazine reaches more than 4 million businessmen. What is your final message to them?
9 We have the projects so those who have the capital should come down here and help us tidy up some of these projects which will help us to create more employment for Ghanaians who are roaming about in foreign countries.
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© World INvestment NEws, 1999.
This is the electronic edition of the special country report on Ghana published in Forbes
December 13th 1999 Issue.
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GHANA
