Railway sector will soon be buoyant - Ghana Railway Development Authority

The budgetary allocation to the railway sector over the years has not been enough to ensure that the sector becomes vibrant, Richard Diedong Dombo, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Railway Development Authority, has said.

He, however, said the authority in collaboration with the current government is putting in place several initiatives to ensure that the sector becomes buoyant.

“We are looking at various mode of funding for the sector,” he told Chief Jerry Forson on the Ghana Yensom show on Accra 100.5FM Tuesday, July 17.

He added: “The finance minister is limited as to how much he allocates to the sector because there are other sectors competing for the resources, so we had to look for other sources of funding to support what we are given by the Finance Minister. We needed to think outside the traditional box for funding.”

He further explained that on the average $ 4.2 million is needed to construct one-kilometre rail. But the budgetary allocation to the sector over the years has not been enough to ensure that more kilometres of the rail are constructed.

“For instance, in 2016 the rail sector was allocated GH¢ 20million. When you do the conversion into dollars you will realise that this amount can only construct just a kilometre of the rail.

“This tells you that the GH¢ 20 million given to the sector in 2016 was for maintenance and salaries and others, not for construction of new railway lines,” he told show host Forson.

When asked whether one will be right to indicate that the rail sector has collapsed, he answered: “It is an absolute truth but it is not this regime that has caused it. The good news is that we are rising. The railway sector in due course will be very buoyant.”