Roads and Highways Minister Kwame Governs Agbodza has directed contractors working on major road projects to increase their capacity ahead of Christmas to prevent motorists from enduring prolonged traffic congestion during the festive season.
He said construction activities along busy routes must be properly managed to ensure that commuters can travel without spending hours in traffic during the yuletide.
Speaking during an inspection of the Ashaiman-Akosombo Eastern Corridor LOT 1 project, Agbodza said contractors must make additional arrangements to improve traffic flow even as construction continues.
“The cardinal request currently is for you to make sure and not only you, BHM and FESCAI to make sure that for the sake of the Christmas, we make sure we create additional capacity to facilitate motorists using the corridor,” he said.
“I mean, we don’t want to ruin anybody’s Christmas having been stuck in traffic for six hours. It’s supposed to be a festive season.”
The Minister acknowledged that the road would remain a construction site and cautioned motorists against expecting unrestricted travel at normal highway speeds.
“What we don’t want is a congestion where people get stuck going for Christmas for two hours, three hours, four hours. Let’s work together to avoid that,” he said.
He urged contractors to maintain cleared sections of the road and continue dust-control measures by regularly watering the surface to improve conditions for motorists.
Agbodza also directed the owners of a large billboard at the Ashaiman Roundabout, which he said was within the road’s right of way, to remove it within one week to make way for a planned flyover.
“It’s within the right of way. We are giving them a week to decommission it and take it out because there’s a flyover coming there. We cannot work around the billboard so it has to be decommissioned,” he said.
He warned that the government would remove the structure if the owners failed to comply.
“If next week, by this time, we don’t get it decommissioned, we will remove it ourselves and get it so that we don’t distort the contractors program,” he added.
The Minister’s directives come as the government prepares to move the Ashaiman-Akosombo Eastern Corridor LOT 1 project onto the Big Push programme, following delays in accessing a €256 million loan facility from Germany.
The project, which began in 2022, is expected to take a further 22 months to complete under the contractor’s revised programme, with the target set around October 2028.
Agbodza said the immediate priority was to improve traffic conditions during the Christmas period while ensuring that construction progresses.
