Akufo-Addo Gov't constructing 4 Interchanges at the Cost of One Mahama Interchange – Bawumia
The Vice President cited suggested the 'Circle Dubai' interchange was overpriced
Jonas Danquah 
Ghana’s Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says the current government has done more infrastructural projects at costs comparatively less than the erstwhile Mahama government.
According to the vice president, the cost of one interchange under the John Dramani Mahama administration is the cost of four interchanges under the Akufo-Addo administration.
Mr Bawumia made this remark speaking at a ‘Town Hall’ meeting on Tuesday, August 18, 2020.
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia
The Vice President cited Tema, Pokuase and Obetsebi Lamptey interchanges in the Greater Accra Region and Tamale in the Northern Region, all at a total cost of $289 million comparing it with the $260 million Kwame Nkrumah Interchange.
Prior to the 2016 elections, John Dramani Mahama commissioned a redesigned Kwame Nkrumah Circle interchange to ease the heavy vehicular traffic in the capital.
Dubbed ‘Dubai Interchange’, the three-tier interchange included a 1.2km flyover from the then Busy Internet end of the Ring Road to the Awudome Cemetery, near the Obetsebi-Lamptey Roundabout with street lights.
The phase one of the project cost €74 million whilst phase two was at US$170 million.
In 2019, however, President Akufo-Addo-led NPP government commissioned the redevelopment of the Obetsebi Lamptey Circle into an interchange at a reported $39 million for phase one and $100 million for phase two.
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The $39 million of the project is a loan from a British bank, HSBC, which was secured under the previous administration and approved by Parliament in August 2016.
A one-kilometre interchange in Northern regional capital is the first-ever in the Northern Region. This is being constructed from the projects funded through the $2 billion Government of Ghana-Sinohydro Master Project Support Agreement but Government indicated that it will cost $35 million.
There is also the much talked about $65 million Pokuase Interchange project in the Ga West Municipality in the Greater Accra Region.
Bawumia, addressing the audience also noted that, for eight years that the NDC government was in power, it could not complete one major road in three regions in the North i.e. the Upper West, Upper East and Savannah regions.
But the Akufo-Addo administration in the first-term has seen these regions having at least one major road.
