The deficit in the country’s road infrastructure can be attributed to the unchecked expansion of communities, the Minister of Roads and Highways, Alhaji Inusah Fusseini, has said.
The Minister opined that, the trumping of planning authorities by traditional leaders contributes to the population expansion, which in turn affects the Road Ministry’s ability to keep up infrastructure development with community expansion.
[contextly_sidebar id=”cwYIkum9qNHEh1iFvDKgf0BLMqmOpc1x”]“Expansion of this country in terms of settlement is at about 10 percent, and every year, this Ministry has about 10 percent catching up to do,” Alhaji Fuseini noted in an interview with Citi News on the sidelines of the mid-year budget presentation in Parliament on Monday.
‘Growth and expansion clearly ahead of planning authorities’
Alhaji Fusseini explained that, the reason for this expansion was because “we have a constitutional system built on a traditional system where land ownership is vested in chiefs, stools and skins… who partition and give out lands without recourse to the planning authorities.
This meant development takes place in areas which are not part of the planning scheme of the various district assemblies according to Alhaji Fusseini, who lamented the fact that his Ministry always had to chase after the development.
“It becomes the responsibility of the Ministry and Local authorities to ensure that those roads are done so every year you would have challenges to deal with,” he stated.
What the mid-year budget said about road infrastructure
The Finance Minster, Seth Terkper, during his presentation of the mid-year budget highlighted the progress made on major and minor road projects.
According to him, the activities undertaken include the rehabilitation, reconstruction, construction and upgrading of roads and bridges, and that the under-listed projects are at various stages of completion as at May 2016.
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana