Abandoned projects: Ghana’s monument to neglect (Part 3)

In many communities in Ghana, hope for development is like a good breakfast but a bad supper. Projects start very enthusiastically and continue at breakneck speed, evoking great joy.

With bated breath, the beneficiary communities believe that the next big thing is about to happen for them. They think that the eel’s hope of becoming a whale is about to materialise.

But their expectations are dashed before long. The projects are halted, and their hope of landing a dream project proves to be, after all, a mere dream.

These projects are what I call Ghana’s monument to neglect, a phenomenon that is a very damning indictment of the failures of successive governments.

The first part of this article featured the $200 million Saglemi Affordable Housing Project at Prampram in the Greater Accra Region comprising 5,000 residential units.

The NDC initiated it, completed 1,500 units, and handed them over to the NPP government but none has been allocated because the NPP suspects malfeasance in the deal.

Last week, the KNUST Teaching Hospital project at Boadi, near the university’s main campus took centre stage. The project was begun in 2008 to train more health professionals, bridge the gap between the demand and supply of critically needed staff, and ease the pressure on the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

But lack of funds left it abandoned for over a decade until work resumed recently. The first phase is expected to be completed in October this year.

In this final instalment, the white elephant in focus is the $2.4 million Youth Sports Centre project at Ho in the Volta Region, comprising a FIFA standard football pitch, an eight-lane athletic track, tennis, basketball, and handball courts among other facilities.

The 10,000-seater project took off in March 2018 and was due to be completed in February 2019 but, reports say it has been abandoned midway.

A press release circulated in February by the NDC said the project site had become a grazing field for cattle and a hunting ground for grasscutter.

Even bigger neglected projects abound but were not prioritised in this article, either because they have been resumed or have been shelved.

Among the resumed projects is the $180 million state-of-the-art, 500-bed capacity military hospital at Afari in the Atwima-Nwabiagya District of the Ashanti Region.

Conceived in 2008 by former President J. A. Kufuor and approved by Parliament in November the same year, the original site was Sofoline in Kumasi.

But a protracted dispute caused the location to be changed three times, from Sofoline, to Tamale after the NDC came to power in 2008, to the 37 Military Hospital before finally landing at Afari.

For six whole years, it got stalled until 2014, when the land at Afari was prepared for actual work to start in 2015. In fact, a sod was cut at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra and work began before further bickering finally relocated the facility to Afari.

The work in Accra had to be stopped but not without great cost.  The contract stipulated that if the site changed, the contractor must be compensated. The company demanded about $36 million but the Government negotiated and reduced it to $19 million. The Government hesitated in paying and the contractor slowed down work, further delaying the project.

Thus, due to somebody’s thoughtless negligence, crass laxity, gross dereliction of duty, and lack of due diligence, we had to cough up a whopping $19 million in punitive cost. That money could have been used to provide eight regions with the type of youth centre designed for Ho.

Indications are that all the physical infrastructure such as the administration block, staff quarters, medical and surgical blocks, have been completed. Installation of equipment is on-going with inauguration anticipated to be in December this year.

Another category of deprioritised stalled projects deals with those which suffered a stillbirth, those that were dead on arrival. One such project that would have been a game-changer is the aborted $2.6 billion sky train project, an elevated railway system spanning 194 kilometres with a capacity to transport 400,000 passengers per year within Accra.

At independence in 1957, the population of the capital, Accra, was just 250,000 but it has exploded to its current level of over six million. The project, was, therefore, expected to decongest traffic drastically in the city, boost economic activity and reduce pollution due to unhealthy vehicular fumes.

Most of the works such as the fabrication and construction were to be done in Ghana to create about 5,000 jobs for Ghanaians during the implementation phase scheduled to begin by January 2020.

The South African investment partners, Ai SkyTrain Consortium, were said to have conducted feasibility studies at their own expense to kickstart the project, paving the way for the signing of an agreement on Thursday, November 8, 2018, in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ghana’s Railway Development Minister at the time, Mr. Joe Ghartey, signed for the country, saying: “The economics of this project are good. We are very excited about the prospects,” with President Nana Akufo Addo by his side.

All was set for the project to start in earnest, but, alas, that was not to be. Mr. Peter Amewu, the new railways minister argued that the project was too expensive.

Can you believe that after all the fanfare and economic benefits, the same government chickened out of the deal because of the cost? Are we serious? If not now, when? Some people would argue that given the dire straits in which Ghana finds herself, the new minister was right. I beg to differ.

A wealthy Nigerian, Mr. Omololu Onabanjo, who graciously hosted me while I was on a visit to his country some time ago, told me, with some anguish in his voice: “Tony, Africa has a long way to go.”

I kept pondering over his statement thinking that because he schooled in the UK for a long time, he had become so anglicised as to despise his own continent.

After a while, he came back to me and said: “Listen, I have thought about what I told you and I have realised that we don’t have anywhere to go.”

Clarifying his point, he said: “The people we are chasing are out of sight. They negotiated the development curve ahead of us a long time ago. We don’t see their back. How then can we follow them to where they have reached?”

Who said we are broke? The simple truth is that we cannot eat our cake and have it. When we do not prioritise and cut our coat according to our size, where do we expect to get the money to fund a capital-intensive but ultimately profitable venture like the sky train project?

When we waste money uselessly on emoluments, a situation worsened by bureaucratic obesity, how can we prioritise feasible projects like the Ho youth sports centre? If we scrap ex-gratia alone, we can build such centres in all the regional capitals. 

If you will not do it, do not promise on your honour to do it. Do not build castles in the air. If you cannot complete it, do not start it at all and waste our scarce resources.

But, if it is a game-changer like the sky train, why chicken out? If we fail to take bold and pragmatic steps to develop our country now, we would continue to linger far behind while others reach for the stars as Mr. Onabanjo said.

Where was Singapore when Ghana was blossoming under the inspiring leadership of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah? Now, Singapore which gained its independence in 1965, eight years after Ghana’s, is the richest country in Asia and among the world’s top ten economies in terms of its GDP per capita. It is the only Asian country to attain a higher per capita GDP than the US by every measure.

It took a combination of free enterprise, social interventions like quality mass education, affordable healthcare, cheap transportation, capital accumulation not dissipation, and strong-willed leadership by Lee Kuan Yew to transform Singapore into the economic power it is today.

One time he told his people without mincing words that he was on a mission, and anyone who would withstand him, would have himself to blame.

That is what I call leadership. Paul Kigame of Rwanda is manifesting similar traits despite the political turmoil and the disruptions of war he inherited.

With his no-nonsense style and refusal to be pushed around by any Western godfather, he is doing for his country what Nkrumah wanted to do for Ghana.

Akufo Addo must take a cue from Nkrumah and Kagame and transform Ghana into the haven she is destined to be. He must not just hire; he must begin to fire as well.

By Tony Prempeh

Contact: teepeejubilee@yahoo.co.uk