Apologise for ‘lying’ about cost of Kwame Nkrumah Interchange – NDC to Bawumia

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) says Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia lied about the cost of the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange.

The party, therefore, wants the Vice President to apologise and retract the statement he made about the cost of the project.

Speaking at a Town Hall Meeting and Results Fair last Tuesday, Dr Bawumia said the interchange cost a whopping $260 million.

He further claimed that the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government was constructing four similar interchanges at almost the same cost.

But reacting to this, the NDC said Dr Bawumia added: “the cost of two separate and distinct projects; the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange and the Ring Road Flyover” to arrive at the $260 million he quoted.

National Communications Officer of the NDC, Sammy Gyamfi, further accused the Vice President of perpetrating mischief by suggesting the project be inflated.

“This mischief which was peddled by no less a person than the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana is shameful and reprehensible, to say the least,” he said at a press conference on Monday.

“The scope of work of the two projects are totally different, and so it is disingenuous and shameful for Dr Bawumia to lump the cost of the two projects together and create the impression that the same is inflated.”

The party maintained that the cost of the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange project as approved by Parliament and expended by the contractor was $90 million at the time.

The NDC said the Mahama administration laid before Parliament another export credit facility for the design and construction of another project–the Ring Road Flyover– at a cost of $170 million in October 2014.

“If Bawumia has any modicum of respect for Ghanaians, he will honourably do the needful by retracting and apologizing for this lie which has further lowered his fast-sinking reputation and sullied his integrity and that of the high office he occupies,” Sammy Gyamfi added.