A well-known engineer in Ghana has sounded the alarm about the manner in which the government of President John Dramani Mahama is going about the construction of the so-called Accra to Kumasi Expressway.
He has stated that a nation with some of the highest road casualty statistics on the planet, and which has the dual limitation of a limited budget, should not be building such a road with such recklessness.
“It could become a killer, an environmental disaster of unprecedented proportions, and a financial burden that could span decades, if not centuries. We may have left all thinking and planning behind on this one,” he said.
He has stated that a modern expressway is not built simply by grading land (as the current government has done) and merely laying asphalt.
He has stated that an expressway is a multi-stage engineering project involving planning, land acquisition, earthworks, drainage, pavement construction, structures, safety systems, intelligent transport systems, testing, and commissioning.
Speaking to The Daily Searchlight yesterday, he laid out the typical sequence that comes into play in the construction of a modern highway, with particular attention to what happens underneath the road, because the durability of an expressway depends heavily on work that motorists never see.
He stated that a Modern Expressway Construction goes through several necessary and critical stages numbering over thirty.
He named some of the stages as Feasibility Studies and Route Selection, Detailed Surveying and Engineering Design, Land Acquisition and Right-of-Way, Environmental and Social Preparations, Site Clearance, Setting Out the Road, Geotechnical Investigation and Soil Treatment, and Earthworks — Cutting and Filling.
Again, there is the Construction of Embankments, Formation of the Road Subgrade, Drainage Construction, Culverts and Cross-Drainage Structures, Sub-base Construction, Base Course Construction, Prime Coat, Asphalt Pavement Construction, Asphalt Production, Asphalt Paving, Bridges and Major Structures, and Interchanges.
Others are Median and Roadside Construction, Kerbs, Shoulders and Verges, Road Furniture, Street Lighting, Intelligent Transport Systems, Road Markings, Landscaping and Erosion Control, Safety and Emergency Facilities, Testing and Quality Control, Road Safety Audit, Commissioning, and Defects Liability and Maintenance.
“All these steps must necessarily planned with various critical schematics, sometimes years ahead of actual work, and these plans should be available and widely accessible. The question the government should answer urgently; is where are these schematics? The public deserves to know,” he said.
He lamented the decision to send in the Engineers Regiment to clear a swath of land as the route the expressway would take.
“Any engineer who tells you that you start the construction of a modern expressway by bulldozing through swarths of land never attended an engineering institution. That is just creating a bush path. And it is a dangerous way to begin such sensitive and financially burdensome task. With billions of Ghanaian dollars in play, the public deserves to know why this precipitous and reckless decision was taken in the first place,” he said.
