President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is expected to commission the Tamale interchange project tomorrow Tuesday, March 29, 2022.
The monumental edifice is the first of its kind in the northern part of the country.
The project commissioning ceremony will be done on the same day President Akufo-Addo will be celebrating his 78th birthday.
The Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) government cut the sod for the construction of the project in 2019 to bring relief to commuters and ease regular vehicular congestion within the central business area and further enable inter-urban and national vehicular traffic flow in the northern region.
The project is funded under phase I of the $2 billion Master Project Support Agreement (MPSA) between the government of Ghana and the Sinohydro Corporation of China.
The agreement to help the Akufo-Addo administration to construct a number infrastructure projects including roads, bridges, housing facilities and extension of electricity to rural communities across the country.
The government clarified that the MPSA is a barter arrangement in which it will be compelled to deliver to Sinohydro, Ghana’s manufactured aluminium products.
Structural audit
The Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, at a recent visit to the project site called on the supervising consultant as well as the Ministry of Roads and Highways and the Department of Urban Roads to undertake a structural audit of the performance of the contractor in order to guaranteed value for money for the $46 million dollar project.
He said the execution and completion of the project has been unjustifiably delayed as stipulated in the contract agreement and announced by President Nana Akufo-Addo during the sod cutting ceremony in 2019.
The Tamale South legislator’s call followed a series of agitations from the general public for some defects they detected during the construction and insisted the government should impress on the contractor to do diligent work before completion of the project.
“We are particularly concern about the concrete roundabout at the central mosque intersection which is so wide, there upon, narrowing the effective width of the intersection as you can see, just imagine how a heavy duty articulator truck or the long buses and STC would be able to make a turn here and so we are concern about it” Mr Iddrisu observed.
Roads Ministry’s response
The Ministry of Roads and Highways in its response gave the assurance that the Tamale Interchange project has been undertaken in accordance with the standards and specifications of the ministry.
It explained that the bridge had been designed to a 100-year life, adding that the design went through a rigorous process of approval before implementation.
The ministry explained that the interchange had been constructed to segregate arterial traffic from the local traffic, which used the ground level.
It said the existing road between the Central Mosque and the Taxi Rank used to be a two-lane 6.5-metre road.
Meanwhile, the interchange, which is about one kilometre long, links the road leading from the Dakpema palace through to the Central Taxi rank and Tamale Central Market intersection to the Sakasaka road.
