Government has voted an amount of 75 million dollars for the reconstruction of the Buipe, Yapei and the Daboya bridges in the Northern Region.
According to the Minister of Roads and Highways, Akwasi Amoako Atta, the government deems it cost ineffective and highly unproductive to spend huge amount of money to repair the Buipe and Yapei bridges which serve useful purposes for the nation, but to build a new ones.
Mr. Amoako Atta dropped the hint when he joined the Northern Regional Minister, Salifu Saeed to inspect an ongoing repair works on the Yapei bridge.
Currently, the Yapei bridge which was constructed some 53 years ago, is closed down by the Engineers from the Ghana Highway Authority for a 30 day maintenance work.
The bridge would be closed to the travelling public from 6am to 6pm each day and only vehicles weighing 20 tons would be allowed to cross the bridge within the maintenance period.
The repair works on the Yapei bridge was preceded by a similar one on the Buipe bridge at a cost of about GHC500.000 each.
The Engineer working on the bridges had proposed a two year interval for repair works to be carried out on both the Buipe and the Yapei bridges.
The Roads and Highways Minister however disclosed that the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had already discussed at Cabinet meeting the need to build completely two new bridges at Buipe and Yapei and at the same time build another one at Daboya to serve as alternative for the travelling public.
Each of the three bridges he said was estimated to cost not less than 25 million dollars.
“Our Technical team has already conducted feasibility studies on the three bridges and also done with cost analysis and I tell you we are going to build those bridges”. He said
The Northern Regional Minister, Salifu Saeed on behalf of the Chiefs and people of the region, commended the Roads Minister and the government for realizing the need to put those bridges in good shape.
According to him, the Buipe and the Yapei bridges serve important purposes for the nation as it links the north to the south of Ghana and also serve as international road for the neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Côte D’ Ivoir to Ghana.
The Northern sector of Ghana he indicated served as food basket of the nation and that building a good road network would enhance the economic development of the north and Ghana at large.
Mr Salifu Saeed was particularly happy that the government had considered the construction a new bridge on the Volta river in Daboya where many lives had been lost in boat accidents.
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