Ghana must shift from relying on government budget allocations to private investment and public-private partnerships (PPPs) if it wants to significantly improve its road network, opposition lawmaker Kennedy Nyarko Osei has said.
The NPP MP for Akim Swedru made the call in a Facebook post responding to a World Bank assessment that only about 27 percent of the country’s 94,200-kilometre road network is paved.
According to Mr Osei, 25,435 kilometres of Ghana’s roads are paved, leaving about 68,768 kilometres, or 73 percent, unpaved.
He argued that the scale of the infrastructure gap made it unrealistic for successive governments to depend on annual budget allocations to finance the construction of new roads.
“No nation can build its road infrastructure through Government’s annual budget funding,” he said, arguing that countries with strong road networks had largely relied on private investment or PPP arrangements.
“If we want to change the status quo then we need to refocus our road financing arrangements through private investments and PPP,” he added.
Mr Osei said Ghana should establish systems that would allow private investors to finance economically viable roads and recover their investments through road-user charges.
He pointed to neighbouring Ivory Coast as an example, saying the country had developed some of the best roads in the sub-region partly because motorists paid what he described as realistic tolls.
According to Mr Osei, the average toll for a sedan using a toll route of up to 20 kilometres in Ivory Coast was equivalent to about $3.50.
He said such a financing model could make road projects attractive to investors if they were assured of recovering their capital within 10 to 15 years.
“If we are serious in building at least 80% of roads within the next 10 years then we need to focus on private investments and PPP,” he said.
He further argued that government funding should largely be directed towards maintaining and rehabilitating existing roads rather than financing the construction of new ones.
“Central Government’s budget must focus on road maintenance and rehabilitation of existing roads and not for the construction of new roads,” he said.
His comments follow the World Bank’s warning that Ghana’s road network remains a major constraint on economic growth, competitiveness and job creation, particularly in rural communities.
World Bank Division Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Robert R. Taliercio, said more than half of the country’s roads were in fair-to-poor condition.
“This is not just an infrastructure story. It’s a growth story, competitiveness story, and a job story,” Mr Taliercio said at the launch of the World Bank’s Tenth Ghana Economic Update in Accra.
The World Bank has called for reforms to road maintenance financing and institutional coordination, including the operationalisation of the Road Maintenance Trust Fund.
It is also supporting the rehabilitation of about 1,050 kilometres of feeder roads through the $500 million Ghana Market Access and Connectivity Project.
The project is expected to target areas where poor road connectivity is limiting agricultural production, market access and rural livelihoods.
The World Bank has cautioned, however, that expanding road infrastructure without adequate maintenance could worsen the country’s infrastructure challenges.
“Building roads without maintaining them simply accelerates the cycle of degradation that we are all trying to break,” Taliercio said.
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