‘Big Push’ Secret GH¢50bn Contracts …Minority Blow Alarm

Hon. Kennedy Nyarko Osei, Ranking Member on the Roads and Transport Committee, has sounded the alarm over the government’s GH¢50 billion ‘Big Push’ agenda, labeling it a ‘secretive’ operation.

“This is a major flagship program involving substantial public resources of about Gh¢ 50 billion, and Ghanaians have the right to know how these funds are being allocated given the scale and significance of the program.

“We are, therefore, urging the government to act in the interest of transparency and publish the details of the 50 contracts under the Big Push program; specifically, the contractors involved, the scope of works, and how much it is costing the Ghanaian taxpayer per kilometer. This is a reasonable request and a necessary step toward ensuring public confidence in the implementation of this flagship initiative”, Hon. Nyarko Osei, MP for Akim Swedru told journalists at a presser in Accra on Tuesday.

Hon. Nyarko Osei noted further that the NDC led government had spoken “vehemently” about transparency while in opposition, adding: “There is therefore a legitimate expectation that, once in government, higher standards of policy transparency would be upheld. Unfortunately, the current approach appears to mirror the very practices that were previously criticised.”

He said the Minority was well aware of established cost benchmarks in the road construction sector, including the average cost per kilometre for bitumen surface roads, asphaltic overlays, and dual carriageways. Once the cost details were made available, he said, they would be juxtaposed with these benchmarks “to ensure that they do not overrun the expected cost ranges”.

Nyarko Osei pointed out the irony of signing new deals while 80% of existing road works sit abandoned and raised concerns over what he describes as a lack of transparency around road contract awards, the abandonment of near-complete projects, and severe underfunding of the road sector.

The Ranking Member said the development undermines public trust and is a waste of scarce state resources. Nyarko Osei lamented that fifteen months into the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration, the road sector is in crisis, with contractors deserting sites across the country and critical infrastructure left to deteriorate.

Abandoned projects ‘a significant setback’

The Ranking Member expressed alarm at what he described as the wholesale abandonment of ongoing road projects inherited from the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration.

“At the point of transition, when the administration of Akufo-Addo handed over governance, there were over 1,000 road projects actively ongoing across the country,” he said. “These projects, spanning all 16 regions and 261 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), were duly documented in the official handing over notes.”

However, he claimed, 15 months into the Mahama government, more than 80 percent of these projects had “effectively been abandoned completely”. “Across the country, contractors have vacated sites, and in many cases, fully demobilised equipment,” he said. “This situation represents a significant setback, particularly given that substantial public funds had already been invested in initiating and progressing these works.”

He singled out the eight bypasses along the Accra-Kumasi highway corridor, including Osino, Anyinam, Enyiresi, and Konongo, as a clear example. These dual carriageway bypasses had reached completion levels ranging from approximately 57 percent to as high as 93 percent as of December 2024, he said, yet had been “completely abandoned”.

“A change in government should not result in the discontinuation of ongoing capital projects, especially those financed by taxpayers,” Hon. Nyarko Osei stressed.

Railway development ‘ground to a halt’

The Minority also raised serious concerns about what it called a “significant decline” in government commitment to railway development. According to Hon. Nyarko Osei, no budgetary allocation was made for railway development in 2025, while only GH¢73 million has been budgeted for the sector in 2026. This stands in sharp contrast to the period between 2017 and 2024, he said, when over USD 1.1 billion was invested in railway modernisation.

He alleged that several key projects that were near completion had now been abandoned, including the Tema-Mpakadan railway line, which he said was 99 percent complete but remained non-operational, and the Kojokrom-Manso railway line, which had reached approximately 95 percent completion by the end of 2024 but had seen no visible continuation. He also noted the termination of the Adum-Kaase railway line project in Kumasi, describing it as “a missed opportunity to deploy multimodal transport solutions to address urban traffic challenges”.

Suame Interchange: Four-tier design under threat

A major point of contention raised by the Minority was the government’s decision to convert the Suame Interchange project from a four-tier to a three-tier interchange. Hon. Nyarko Osei reminded journalists that Parliament had in 2022 approved a loan agreement of €156.4 million and USD 47 million from Deutsche Bank and Afreximbank respectively to finance the Suame Interchange and ancillary works project in Kumasi.

“Crucially, this financing arrangement was approved based on the original four-tier interchange design,” he said. He questioned the justification for downgrading the project: “If the financing had already been secured and approved for the originally designed project, then the justification for reducing the scope of the interchange becomes difficult to understand.” The Minority, he said, would “vigorously advocate for the full implementation of the originally approved four-tier design”.

Road Fund crisis: GH¢20 billion in arrears

The Ranking Member painted a grim picture of the sector’s finances, estimating that outstanding arrears and payables stood at approximately GH¢20 billion. He noted that only GH¢1 billion had been released out of the total GH¢5.8 billion allocations for 2025 and 2026, a situation he described as “clearly inadequate to address the scale of obligations within the sector”.

He claimed that about 80 percent of contractors working under Road Fund projects were currently not on site, largely because the government owed them substantial amounts. “Even in instances where payments are made to contractors, the amounts released are often too small to enable contractors to effectively remobilise to site, further compounding project delays,” he added.

Accra-Kumasi Expressway, road tolls, and institutional delays

The Minority also raised concerns about the proposed Accra-Kumasi Expressway, noting that the total cost of the project had not been disclosed and that the 2026 national budget contained no allocation for it. Hon. Nyarko Osei questioned the prudence of committing substantial resources to a new expressway if the combined cost of compensation and construction significantly exceeded completing the existing dualisation project.

On road tolls, Hon. Nyarko Osei accused the government of halting progress toward a modernised electronic toll collection system, leaving a key campaign promise unfulfilled fifteen months into the administration. He also expressed concern that the National Roads Authority Act 2024 (Act 1118), passed to unify key road agencies, had yet to be operationalised, describing the delay as “deeply concerning”.

In the aviation sector, he questioned the government’s commitment to transforming Ho Airport into a pilot training academy and advancing runway extensions at Prempeh I and Tamale international airports, noting that no allocations had been made in successive budgets.

In his concluding remarks Hon. Nyarko Osei stressed that the issues raised were “not for political effect” but reflected genuine concerns about transparency, fiscal discipline, project continuity, and policy credibility. “Infrastructure development requires long-term planning, stable financing, and consistent implementation across successive administrations,” he said.

He called on the government to provide greater transparency regarding infrastructure financing, accelerate the implementation of stalled transport projects, and ensure that commitments made to the Ghanaian people were backed by clear implementation plans and budgetary support.