The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Kwasi Amoako-Attah, has spoken out against the rampant corruption and theft in his ministry under the current administration.
Mr. Amoako-Attah, while addressing the range of actions taken by his staff that have hindered the overall progress of the government, expressed deep dismay at the conduct exhibited by certain members of his team and other officials.
Even though he has tried curbing such behaviours by firing a few complicit individuals, he asserted that the new ones he employs happen to do far worse than the old ones.
“There are a lot of corrupt people, there are a lot of thieves in my ministry. You sack them, you employ new ones, and when they come, the new ones are even worse than the old ones that you sacked, what kind of country are we building for ourselves?” he said.
He said that he did not know what people wanted and why they were so greedy and selfish. He said that everyone would die one day and leave everything behind, so they should be patriotic and honest.
“I don’t know what people want, we will die and leave everything behind. All of us, those who came before us are all gone. We heard the big names, people with money and wealth, where are they? Look at what we are seeing and we are citizens of this country?,” he asked.
Mr Amoako-Attah made these remarks on Wednesday, August 23, 2023, during a visit to the ongoing VALCO roundabout-Kpone road reconstruction project.
The minister expressed how saddened he was by the poor state of some roads in the country, especially those that had been damaged by heavy trucks carrying cargo from the Tema Port to neighbouring countries.
He said that these trucks did not respect the axle load regime and overloaded their vehicles, thereby destroying the roads that had been constructed with millions and billions of money.
“All of us and our government is spending millions and billions of money to fix our roads. We get transporters from other neighbouring countries; coming to pick cargo from your ports and they don’t respect our axle road regime. See all these vehicles here and they park for hours un-end.
“My information is that some of them are now going through the documentation process at the port so they park on the shoulders of the roads for more than 24 hours. They have destroyed the shoulders of our roads and when they come to the roads themselves, because of the unauthorized axle load that they carry, the roads that we spend our hard-earned monies to build, they destroy them,” he said.
He also accused some officials at the port, the axle load centres, and the road barriers of taking bribes from the truck drivers and allowing them to pass through without checking their weights or documents. He said that these officials were betraying their country and contributing to its underdevelopment.
He said that these truck drivers could not do the same in their own countries, such as Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire, where they had to offload part of their cargo before entering. He lamented that some Ghanaians were calling on the president and the government to fix the country, but they were not fixing themselves or their attitudes. He questioned what kind of country they were building for themselves and their children.
“And my information is that they cannot do the same in their countries; the French-speaking countries; Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, and so on, when they get to Paga, they offload part of their cargo before they enter those countries but in our country, we have axle road centers; the road from the port, there’s supposed to be an axle road center there, we have barriers on our roads, we have some of the customs people manning some of our barriers, the police are manning our barriers but they have free access through our corridor. What are we doing to our country? Because of bribery and corruption and we are the same people who called on the president, who called on the government to fix the country,” he noted.
Mr Amoako-Attah therefore appealed to all stakeholders in the road sector to cooperate with him and his ministry to ensure that the roads in the country were well maintained and improved.
He said that he was determined to deliver on his mandate and fulfil the vision of President Nana Akufo-Addo to make Ghana a model of development in Africa. He warned that he would not tolerate any acts of corruption or theft in his ministry and that anyone who was caught would face the full rigours of the law.