Ghana has built beautiful rail lines but there are no trains to commute on them, a transport expert Rev Dr Charles Adam has said.
The same situation, he said, exists in Ethiopia where they have built rail lines but with no trains.
For him, the rail system in Ghana is currently being managed with old technology that is not meeting modern reality.
Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 Tuesday, July 18, Rev Dr Adam indicated that what Ghana needs is a comprehensive workable transport master plan for the urban area of Accra in order to solve the transportation issue.
“What we need is a workable transport master plan for the urban area of Accra. We tried to do that when we wanted to do the Bus Rapid System (BRS) but everything we planned we couldn’t do it. So we probably have to go back to the drawing table and find out, why we couldn’t do it,” he said while reacting to the reports on the $ 2 million paid to Africa Investor Holdings for the construction of a Sky Train which the minority has in parliament has said should be refunded.
He added “Why is it that Nigeria built its bus rapid system, and now it is building a rail network?
“It is because it has learned how to do it right. We haven’t even learned to build the first one and we are thinking of jumping to a higher infrastructure or a higher system that probably may be a little more complicated. We don’t have any public transport authority, even the institutional capacity does not exist, and the capacity to maintain a rail network today doesn’t exist, what we know about rail networks is based on old technology.
“We have built a lot of rail lines but we don’t have trains running. So if you ask me whether we have the capacity to even maintain rail service, I doubt it and that is the kind of problem that Ethiopia is also facing, they built nice beautiful systems because it was promised and was delivered but they don’t have the capacity to maintain it.
“Politics is politics but let us be a little pragmatic and circumspect as we engage in these kinds of arguments.”
The Minority in Parliament is demanding answers from the government regarding the $2 million investment with the investor.
It is recalled that the report of the Auditor-General on the Public Accounts of Ghana- Public Boards, Corporations and other Statutory Institutions for 2021 stated that the Ai Sky Train Consortium Holdings which is the special purpose vehicle was yet to obtain a license in the country.
Feasibility studies had equally not been undertaken yet the payment was made, according to the Minority.
Addressing the press in Parliament on Monday, July 17, Member of Parliament for Adaklu Kwame Agbodza said “In 2019, we all saw this picture from South Africa where the President, the Finance Minister the Minister for Railways, Honourable Joe Ghartey. The first time we heard it was when they issued a statement that Accra to get Sky Train and they called a huge amount of money even before Parliament was aware.
“When they returned to Ghana they started adding the pieces together and it turned out that the Government of Ghana encouraged an investor from South Africa to set up a Special Purpose Vehicle in Mauritius and before the company actually even starts to do feasibility studies someone in the government has decided to pay 2million dollars to this entity.
“Then this year January, the former Minister for Railway Honorable Joe Gharty gave an interview where he suggested that he never said that the Skytrain project was going to be funded by the government.
“If the government was not the one funding the Sky Train, what was the 2 million Dollars meant for? But the important question is this, when you have a situation where the Minister says in 2023 that he always believes that before the project takes off there should be a cabinet approval, there should be a parliamentary approval, PPA approval, since none of these things, in fact, the Auditor General report suggested that the company did not even have the license to operate this system they wanted to operate, so the question is, what was the reason for the government to act in the way to give out 2 million dollars?
Who actually took the decision to pay this entity in Mauritius? Was Dr Bawumia, the chairman of the economic management team aware that without any recourse to the Public Procurement Act, it was wrong for any government entity to pay that kind of amount? Who authorized the payment of the 2 million Dollars in terms of the so-called feasibility? Which normal decision-maker pays out 2 million Dollars for feasibility to determine whether the project is bankable? This thing will only happen when it is an organized crime., when people are careless.”