$84m Pokuase Interchange nears completion, project to be ready April

Work on the $84-million Pokuase Interchange at the ACP Junction in the Ga North Municipality is progressing steadily with all the major works nearly completed.

The Resident Engineer, Kwabena Bempong, who disclosed this in an interview with the Ghanaian Times yesterday, said 91.8 per cent of the project had been completed.

He said the bridges linking Accra to Kwabenya, Awoshie, Kumasi, and Pokuase had been completed and opened to traffic.

Currently, Mr Bempong, who is the Resident Engineer for Associated Consultants, the consulting company for the project, said work on the bridge connecting Kwabenya to Kumasi was ongoing and would be completed by first week in March this year.

Mr Bempong said the project, initially scheduled for completion in March, would be ready in April after the government granted a four-day extension request by the contractor due to the outbreak of COVID-19, stressing that by that time the substantial work on the project would have been completed.

The Resident Engineer said work on road signs on the project was 71 per cent complete.

Mr Bempong disclosed that road markings and street lights had been provided on the opened sections of the road.

He also indicated that advance directional road signs and directional road signs were being fixed on the road to provide direction to drivers and pedestrians.

According to him, the National Road Safety Authority had been contracted to provide road user sensitisation on the project.

Mr Bempong indicated that the contractor would offer a one-year defect liability period under which if there was a problem with the project, the contractor would fix at its own cost.

The Resident Engineer said 94 per cent of 12-kilometre town roads such as Pokuase and Ayawaso had been completed.

The groundbreaking ceremony was performed in July 2018 for the commencement of the Pokuase Interchange.

The project which is jointly funded by the African Development Bank and Government of Ghana is expected to be completed in the first week of April 2021.

The project when completed is expected to ease traffic and improve urban traffic congestion and improve urban mobility along the Accra-Nsawam road and to the Sahelian countries such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

The construction which is being undertaken by Messrs China Zhongmei Engineering Company Limited forms part of the Accra Urban Transport project aimed at promoting sustainable economic growth for people in the area and beyond.