{"id":467284,"date":"2018-02-24T17:30:36","date_gmt":"2018-02-24T17:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/24\/past-government-left-gh%c2%a217-8bn-debt-in-road-sector-minister\/"},"modified":"2018-02-24T17:30:36","modified_gmt":"2018-02-24T17:30:36","slug":"past-government-left-gh%c2%a217-8bn-debt-in-road-sector-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/24\/past-government-left-gh%c2%a217-8bn-debt-in-road-sector-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Past government left GH\u00a217.8bn debt in road sector &#8211; Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">Business News of Saturday, 24 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>Graphic.com.gh <\/p>\n<p>2018-02-24<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/13988646.295.jpg\" alt=\"Kwasi Amoako Atta Roads And Highways\" title=\"Kwasi Amoako Atta Roads And Highways\" width=\"295\" height=\"171\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Atta<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125813973067\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125813973067\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1519493436_238_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Kwasi Amoako-Atta, has stated that the previous government left behind a total commitment of GH\u00a217.8 billion in the road sector.<\/p>\n<p>He said the debt owed to contractors under the Government of Ghana project amounted to GH\u00a21.1 billion while the debt owed to contractors under the Road Fund was GH\u00a2506 million.<\/p>\n<p>Contributing to the debate on the State of the Nation address delivered by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Mr Amoako-Atta, who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Atiwa West, stated that the former government worsened the situation when it migrated the Road Fund for a loan at the UBA Bank.<\/p>\n<p>He, therefore, disputed the suggestion that the lack of money for the road sector was because funds were not earmarked for government institutions. Mr Amoako-Atta said as a result of the indebtedness, the current government was struggling to generate money to construct the roads.<\/p>\n<p>But he gave an assurance that the government would work to fix the roads.<\/p>\n<p><b>Roads in poor condition<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Mr Amoako-Atta indicated that only 23 per cent of the 73,000 kilometres (km) of roads in the country were paved, with the rest at the gravel or earth state.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, only 39 per cent of the roads were considered good, 32 were fair and 29 poor.<\/p>\n<p>The minister said the government would construct trunk and feeder roads this year as they required urgent action.<\/p>\n<p><b>Debt stock<\/b><\/p>\n<p>When he took his turn, the MP for Ho Central, Mr Benjamin Kpodo, took the government on for the astronomical increase in the country&#8217;s debt stock.<\/p>\n<p>He said in January, 2017, the debt was at GH\u00a2122 billion but it had risen to GH\u00a2139 billion, saying &#8220;more borrowing is going on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Kpodo noted that a lot of the debts were not captured, adding that if all the figures were captured, the total debt could be about GH\u00a2170 billion.<\/p>\n<p>He, therefore, challenged the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, to come out with the outstanding liabilities and present the true state of the country&#8217;s debt stock.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 3 updated by: 3 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Business News of Saturday, 24 February 2018 Source: Graphic.com.gh 2018-02-24 Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Atta The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Kwasi Amoako-Atta, has stated that the previous government left behind a total commitment of GH\u00a217.8 billion in the road sector. He said the debt owed to contractors under the Government of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":461878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}