Nkrumah Interchange delays not for electoral gains - Inusah Fuseini

Roads and Highways Minister, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini has rubbished assertions that the delays in the commissioning of the Kwame Nkrumah Circle interchange in Accra is an election gimmick.

A section of Ghanaians claim the delays in the completion of the project and its subsequent commissioning was a deliberate ploy by the government to deliver it at the last minute to elections in order to score some political points But Alhaji Fuseini play down the claims, saying “this is not a way by government to buy votes ahead or during the elections because these projects had been planned already”.

President Mahama in October 2013 cut the sod for the construction of the three-tier interchange estimated at 74 million Euros to ease traffic at the circle said to handle over 84,000 vehicles from the arterial roads and their intersections daily. In August last year, the first phase of the project was commissioned and opened to traffic.

The third flyover which is under construction, plus other ancillary works – a new statue of Ghana’s first President Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, a fountain and a police post, new lorry parks – among others, was expected to be completed and inaugurated before June 2016. But the government says the entire project is scheduled to be completed in October this year.

Speaking on 3FM’s morning show, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini said government was committed to making sure infrastructural works were done to aid development in the country.

“The Kwame Nkrumah interchange is almost ready and will be up for commissioning by October,” he said, noting projects like the interchange are what President John Dramani Mahama is doing as part of the social and economic infrastructure.

“Even if tomorrow is elections and we are constructing roads and interchanges today, I don’t think we would roll off the asphalt and everything else after the elections,” he told host of the show, Winston Amoah.

“Ghana will survive and Ghana will endure and the roads ought to be done whether it’s an election year or not”.