Despite the public protestations over the rapid and haphazard developments along the buffer zone of the Accra-Tema Motorway, nothing, it seems, is being done about it. The Chronicle has, over the years, also written on this topic, yet, permanent structures continue to spring up on what we consider to be a buffer zone along the only motorway we have in the country.
When Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, conceived the idea of building the Accra-Tema Motorway, he knew a time would come when the road would have to be expanded to contain the increasing vehicular traffic. As a result, he left huge tracts of land along the corridor to give room for the future expansion.
The only concrete road we have in Ghana was opened to traffic on November 30, 1965, and was meant to last fifty years.
Since the fifty year life-span has now elapsed, the current government is working around the clock to secure funding to reconstruct the deteriorated road and expand it from the current four lanes to six concrete surfacing. What has delayed the project is funding, but the Ministry of Roads and Highways is assuring the nation that the conundrum would soon be solved for work to begin on the project.
Clearly, the current administration has decided to expand the Accra-Tema Motorway to six lanes, because there is space to accommodate the extension. However, looking at the way developers are encroaching upon the buffer zones, the fear of The Chronicle is that if the country wants to further expand the road again in the next fifty years, there will be no land for it.
Accra is expanding at an alarming rate, as towns and villages that were far away from the capital city have now become part of it.
As we put this piece together, Winneba in the Central Region has almost become part of Accra. In our estimation, within the next twenty to twenty-five years, Sogakope in the Volta region would also become part of Accra.
Since all commercial activities have been centred in the central part of the city, people staying in Winneba and Sogakope would have to commute from these places, which would have been suburbs of Accra, to the Central Business District to transact business. This is surely going to put more pressure on the Motorway, which also serves as an international road from Nigeria, Togo, Benin and Ghana all the way to La Cote d’Ivoire.
Now, with the developments we are seeing in the buffer zone, there is no way the road can be expanded beyond the proposed six lanes. This means, in the next fifty years, when the Motorway can no longer contain the volume of traffic beyond the six lanes that the government is going to construct, there would be no land to expand it.
Our information is that, some families claim that part of the buffer zones belongs to them, and that they have the right to develop it. The government appears to have accepted the positions of these families. This raises the question about the whereabouts of these families when the buffer zone was lying idle for well over fifty years without being encroached upon.
Africa seems to be lagging behind when it comes to development, because we always fail to properly plan for the future. If we do, the authorities would have noticed that the Accra-Tema Motorway plays an important role in the economic development of this country, and that, it is important the buffer zone is protected.
