Moving capital city 'not important' now – Dan Botwe

It is not important at the moment to relocate Ghana’s national capital from Accra, the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Dan Botwe has said. In his view, enough measures have been put in place to make Accra work efficiently as the national capital, thus, it will be too expensive to move the capital now.

“I do not think the relocation of the capital city is important now because it costs so much,” Mr Botwe told journalists at the Regional Ministers and Chief Directors Conference. In his estimation, “now that we have expanded services with leadership and well-trained capacity-building, we should be able to deliver”.

Mr Botwe’s comment comes on the back of repetitive clamouring for the national capital to be moved to a different part of the country. Earlier this month, one of the capital relocation advocates, the Omanhene of the Agogo Traditional Area, Nana Kwame Akuoko Sarpong, revived the debate, saying Accra was made Ghana’s capital by accident.

He suggested that Accra be made a commercial capital while administrative functions of the country are moved to areas around Kintampo in the Bono East Region. “I have spoken about this before”, he said, adding: “We can be thinking of relocating the administrative capital somewhere near Kintampo while Accra remains the commercial capital”.

“[We can] have an administrative capital away from Accra, somewhere within the interior, near Yeji, where there’s water”, Nana Akuoko Sarpong suggested.

He added: “We must plan ahead because Accra was not planned to be a capital”.

Accra, the chief noted, “became a capital by accident around 1875 during King Tackie’s time because Accra is very close to the sea and is below sea level,” he explained after a ceremony to celebrate his 45th-anniversary as the Omanhene of the Agogo Traditional Area.

Accra became the capital of the British Gold Coast colony in 1877 with the transfer of the seat of government of the colonial authority from Cape Coast.