This story is purely based on personal observations and opinion. This is the story of a road. It is a Ghanaian Road, but its precise location is unimportant. In fact, its precise location would be a distraction. It is a true story in so far as any story is true. It’s the story of a Ghanaian Road that begins in China.. Even the most far fetched stories in Ghana can be true these days, you see. I guess it has elements of a myth and yet it is true, factual, real and , like many stories in our complex world (and unlike many myths in Ghana), it doesn’t have a hero, villain or moral. However it does have a politics and economics because no story teller of conscience can write otherwise now that politicians have commandeered fiction. But its politics and economics, I confess are distorted and unspecific. It is some ways a love story but the love is as flawed, temporary and unlikely as modern love often is. It includes an element of the super natural, especially the way the Chinese Engineering and construction crew have dealt effectively with and successfully bridged that tortuous hill at Pokuase, and addressed the engineering scheme which achieved it with childlike simplicity. This notorious portion of the original road, which had seen many a break down and accidents of countless articulated trucks and other vehicles, laden with fuel, goods and people, has now been forever humbled. The 20 metre high flyover bridge over the railway line ensured this portion will no longer be a threat to commuters. How impressive.
I witnessed this myself when I drove down the yet unfinished portion of the road from Ofankor to Nsawam to visit my Doctor Friend working at Nsawam General Hospital in January 2006. Right now, these are some of her characteristics; it forms part of the busiest highway in Ghana. It is a 17.5 kilometre dual carriageway which leads from the outskirts of the Ghanaian capital Accra and snakes through picturesque and lush green sparsely populated valley, cutting through quiet and quaint Ga rural villages, like Pokuase,Amasaman, Shikpontele,Sapeiman, Kutunse and Dobro towards Nsawam, where it ends. The original plan however is to bypass this town so that increasing traffic can avoid the centre of the town, a bottleneck that hinders traffic flow on this busiest commercial link to the interior of the country. May be it will need another Chinese grant to complete the by pass to Apedwa. The building cost is 28million dollars, an interest free loan from the Peoples Republic of China.
China has now fallen for Ghana. Ghana is peaceful and in the international spotlight right now, ready and unblinking. Although she’s known limited violence, especially during military coups and half baked revolutions in the past, she is currently basking in the economic sunshine. She is now an oasis of peace in a turbulent region of Africa and many industrialised countries from the UK, US, Australia, Lebanon to South Africa have always realised and still know she is a cheap source of raw materials, gold, timber and other valuable minerals, as well as unethical and exploitative business dealings under the guise of globalisation, so of course others would like to get in on the act. For a while now foreign countries, except China of course, have successfully managed to persuade Ghana in the past to ignore her development priorities, by pouring all her resources into producing goods and services needed by foreigners to the detriment of its own citizens. Probably this is one of the reasons why this sleek Ghanaian road has been made in China. Who knows.
Until recently serious road building, which should have been a core part of any country’s priority infrastructure stopped. In the last twenty five years in particular, the once “revered” , Structural Adjustment Programme ( SAP) ensured that no significant road building projects were undertaken because they were deemed either too expensive and not necessary at the time. I am old enough to remember that during the period, the time when the country’s infrastructure, built more than 50 to 60 years ago for the care of a colonial minority, was collapsing, Ghana was tricked to accept this policy (SAP) sold to it by the World Bank and IMF called SAP. The Leaders of the country bought it and embraced it so heartily to the extent that the nation ignored its priorities without asking questions. Eventually the policy became the death knell of the nation’s development priorities like road building. If the country had built these roads then, it would have been in a better position now to fully exploit the mushrooming growth in current cross border trade with landlocked sister countries in the sub region. The concept was sold to as “short term pain for long term gain”. The nation was promised that at the end of the exercise, per capita income will rise many folds.
Many a good economists of the day had their doubts about the policy. However even though SAP sounded like a corrective procedure for a sick child, the powers that be jumped into it without asking questions. Some people even said ( and few disagree) that the term SAP sounded more like cosmetic surgery for a prostitute. She is tucked here and augmented there to earn better cash from future tricks, but whatever her appearance, she remains a prostitute of course. 25 years later Ghana has now realised to its chagrin how SAP ensured the devastation of the nation’s development infrastructure especially road construction. Wiser heads have now realised that SAP was just an attempt to make the country ignore its priorities and ready it for all the “rewards”(to others of course) and punishments of “global capitalism.” Now this SAP carrot and stick policy dreamt up by IMF economists, who earn tax free dollars and live in rent free houses in posh residential areas of the capital, is no longer discussed, however its influences are still being felt in current infrastructural development, especially road construction.
As happened in those days, most infrastructural contracts not being built or funded by the Chinese, were awarded to foreign construction companies with minimum local participation. In most cases the companies bring in their own labour and repatriate all the profits abroad because local contractors cannot meet the stringent requirements the Donors, World Bank and IMF have set from the SAP days. Nothing was done to take into account Ghana’s Circumstances and its interests. So no doubt the unemployment situation especially amongst the youth remains dire to this day. Ghanaians have learnt a bitter lesson though. Bitter lesson because the expected changes in the nations’ per capita income promised by those policies after decades of implementation never materialised. The per capita income remained stubbornly static and even fell to lower levels.
As a result of this Road project, Ghana is now welcoming the Chinese with open arms because at least they have indicated that the growing relationship will be mutually beneficial. Will it make any difference? Are they not going to do the same thing ? The Peoples Republic of China, a rising economic superpower is now in love with not only Ghana but also in love with other mineral rich countries on the continent. The long term aim definitely is geared towards satisfying its enormous appetite for raw materials for its booming industries of course but who cares if they have started so impressively with this relatively good and beautiful road project. At the moment the nation can just hope the beginning of this new lovey- dovey relationship does not end up like the 400 years experience of sheer exploitation, that Ghana has had with Western European powers who came to exploit the resources and left the country with peanuts. During those days the only roads and railway infrastructure that were built then did not meet with the priorities and interests of the colonized people. They were just conveniently put into place to facilitate the haulage of massive amounts of cheap raw materials and natural resources to the country’s ports for onward transportation to Europe and other foreign markets. No doubt that exercise made others rich whilst the so called “Natives” remained poor. It is therefore a relief to see the Chinese, at the beginning of the new relationship unselfishly execute the construction of this road with the minimum of fuss and with altruism. The question still remains, what is their long term aim, or what is in it for them ?
Now that it has been completed, it is looking like the Chinese have a different attitude to development from most western nations and the world bank, Whereas these countries and institutions devise projects in supposedly nominal “partnership” with local governments and agencies (attempting not to patronize the recipients), the Chinese adopt a more pragmatic approach. They drop down, like manner from heaven and leaving a railway line, a motorway, a hospital or hydroelectric dam before getting down to the act of doing business. How impressive.
The implementation stage of this Ghanaian road made in China, no doubt created hundreds of much needed unskilled jobs, but one would have hoped that instead of using their own people in key management positions, they will employ the qualified locals and transfer some of their much needed up to date construction skills to them. No they do not do such things because probably they think the locals are too lazy to leave important decisions on , cost, timing and efficiency to them but there is a positive side to all this. Unlike the western aid workers, in Ghana’s burgeoning NGO sector who whisk around in their imported gas guzzling 4 x 4’ sports utility vehicles, who spend more than half of the aid money on themselves, and who are desperate, to get into the local culture, the Chinese lead frugal lives and keep themselves to themselves and bother nobody. When they drop in, they bring their own expertise, equipment and plans. One might have expected this to cause resentment but, in fact, the influx of Chinese engineers and workers for this and other construction projects are welcomed warmly.
Most of all, however, the Chinese Road Project is popular with the whole nation because it captures Ghana’s imagination to complete a dual carriageway between the capital city of Accra and its second city, Kumasi 160 miles away within 5 years or less. Something that if achieved will completely transform commuting between the two cities and possibly eliminate all the horrendous and shocking levels of accidents that are currently claiming the lives of the cream of the nations population. Despite the lack of project management culture and skills in Ghana, which ensures that projects are never completed on time and to budget, the Chinese have managed to overcome all the inherent problems associated with construction in Ghana, and actually completed the Ofankor –Nsawam Road to schedule and to budget. They have actually achieved a great deal for which both the government and people are very grateful. It 's now looking like this Ghanaian road made in China meets with the priorities and interests of the nation.
The Chinese have indeed been generous and gracious with their interest free loans, and Ghana can only offer them many thanks for the needed help, but should the nation believe them when they say the relationship can only be mutually beneficial. At least they are helping the country with some of its priorities, but should the nation buy wholeheartedly into everything they are being told, without questioning whether, what is in it for them is proportionally fair to Ghana ?.
At the moment, Ghana can only be grateful and not ask too many difficult questions. Who is going to be asking these difficult questions when the World Cup is now finally on and Ghana is doing so well. I believe such approaches are popular right now but most of all though, the Chinese road is popular and has become a source of national pride. All the nation can do now is to live in Hope and pray that this new relationship does not become an exploitative one as what it has witnessed before.
This was the story of a road, a Ghanaian road made in China.
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