Construction of footbridges on N1 Highway in limbo

...14 months after Government's assurances

Government seem to be dilly-dallying with the lives of the people following its failure to construct additional footbridges on the George Walker Bush Highway in Accra after numerous promises.

Two and half years after its inauguration, the high-speed road has contributed to lots of deaths and casualties involving both pedestrians and drivers plying the road as a result of inadequate footbridges on the 14.1-kilometre road, especially in densely populated areas such as Lapaz, Awoshie and Kwashieman.

Statistics from the Ghana Police Service indicates that 52 people have been killed between February 2012 and July 2013 while 248 people suffered various degrees of injuries, all arising from accidents.

Currently, there are only six footbridges on the road which are very far apart. The nearest footbridge is about 20 minutes walking distance away from the traffic light intersections.

To this effect, government made a promise last year that it would construct some additional footbridges at vantage points on the highway to facilitate the crossing of the road in order to reduce, if not to eliminate, the frequent knockdowns.

The then Minister for Roads and Highways, Alhaji Aminu Hamidu Suleman, assured Ghanaians in August that the government had planned to construct more footbridges on the accident-prone highway to ensure the safety of pedestrians, and that work would soon begin.

Alhaji Suleman declared in an interview with Public Agenda: “We have programmes to build some footbridges on the road to encourage pedestrians to use them so that we can minimise the fatalities on the road.”

He indicated that government was committed to ensuring that the high-speed road was safe for the use of all. He attributed the delay partly to the commencement of some disability component that was being incorporated in the new design. Besides, there had been a problem of funding.

He admitted that the existing footbridges on the highway had some challenges and therefore user-unfriendly, particularly for Persons with Disability (PWDs). As a result, he said, “We must make sure that we do them[new footbridges] in a manner that will make them disability friendly.”

Alhaji Suleman said that as a temporary measure, “ we will do the five footbridges and they will be well placed in such a way that people will not fill reluctant to walk in order to cross the bridge.”

The new footbridges were to be erected at densely populated locations such as the Fiesta Royal Hotel, Lapaz, Nyamekye Junction, Kwashieman Junction and Awoshie Junction. However, 14 months since the then sector Minister made the pronouncement, work is yet to begin and road users, particularly pedestrians, are beginning to express worry over the long delay in the commencement of work on the footbridges.

“Is government waiting for us to demonstrate before it starts working on the footbridges?” Mr Edmund Frimpong, a 32- year-old resident of Lapaz, queried in an interview with Public Agenda on Wednesday.

Mr Frimpong told Public Agenda that the State may have to grapple with more spillage of blood on the highway if immediate steps were not put in place to stop the accidents.

He said though the spate of knockdowns had reduced lately, it should not be an excuse for the government to abandon the construction of the footbridges.

Madam Regina Ofori, a petty trader at Kwashieman, told Public Agenda, “This is a very important matter of concern that government needs to act on immediately. Government should please come to our aid because we suffer a lot to cross the road.”

The Minister for Road and Highways, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, could not be reached for his comments as all efforts to contact him proved futile.

The George Walker Bush Highway, also known as N1, was built with funds from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a bilateral United States foreign aid agency created by the ex- President George W. Bush's administration in 2004, after the (US) had called for a new compact for development with accountability for both rich and poor countries.

In 2007, Ghana received the sum of US$ 547 million, representing her first tranche of funds from the facility, part of which was used for the construction of the highway. It was opened in February 2012 by late President John Evans Atta Mills.