Ghana needs a new national capital

General news for Saturday, September 26, 2020

Source: GNA

2020-09-26

Habibu Adam, chief economist in the chief minister’s office, called on Friday for a new national capital around the Tamale airport through Savannah to the eastern Bono regions.

He said that Accra was currently plagued by serious traffic and sanitation problems; “If you are not careful, in the next 10 years, Accra will need one interchange per kilometer to allow the free movement of vehicles. There will be too much human and motorized trafficking to the point that the economic costs for the country would be dire.

“Accra has already captured Kasoa from the Central Region and tension is starting to build between Greater Accra and the Eastern Region,” Adam told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra.

The lead economist explained that Tamale International Airport (TIA) should become Ghana’s main international airport for very strategic reasons.

He argued that Tamale was the closest to the rest of the world and shortened the trip by an hour when flights take off from there. “Citizens of neighboring countries like Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali would find it convenient to choose flights to Ghana and do the rest of the trip by road.”

Adam noted that the government could acquire large acres of land five times the size of Heathrow or Dubai airports at no cost or less to the government and turn it into a West African aviation hub.

“The government through the private sector can establish the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of the planes, as well as the cargo village, especially for perishable products that could reach Europe and the rest of the world faster than when they take off from the Kotoka International Airport. in Accra, ”he explained.

“The Accra-based African Continental Free Trade Center, in addition to the Marine Derive project, when completed, could add close to one million people to Accra’s population, in addition to the nearly six million people on earth overloaded with Greater Accra, “he said. .

Mr. Adam noted that: “So it is time that we started working to correct that monumental mistake. Many countries included; Kazakhstan, Burma, Bolivia, Portugal, Indonesia and on the African continent, we have Nigeria, Burundi, Ivory Coast and Tanzania or they have moved their capital or are in the process of moving their capital ”.

He suggested that to solve the problem, each region should have part of the national agenda to lead. “We can have a tourist hub, an educational hub, an automotive hub, a financial hub, an oil hub, among others, to be led by the different regions.”

He stressed that making the Tamale International Airport the Hub would provide an economic justification for all the other airports in the country that the government currently wants to build.

“When passengers arrive at Tamale International Airport, they will be forced to take flights to the various regions of Accra, Kumasi, Ho, Cape Coast, Takoradi and Sunyani. This will boost the national aviation industry. ”

He said that “these actions should be a deliberate government policy to decongest Accra and move the service sectors to the less endowed regions.”

Adam suggested that the $ 10 billion Big Push proposed by the Democratic National Congress (NDC) and the GHS100 billion proposed by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to restart the economy should be channeled through the construction of this new capital.

He pointed out that one of the tragedies of our national development has been the failure of successive governments to chart our development path based on the potential of the different regions.

“Over the years, our main events have been concentrated in Accra and Kumasi, which has caused a massive exodus of people from different regions to Accra and Kumasi, which has resulted in serious economic and social consequences.

“What policy makers should have done was analyze the economic potential of different regions and steer developments in the same way. Highly industrialized regions should have developed along the same path, ”he said.