News:
June 26, 2019
In the wake of population increase and high migration rate to Ghana’s capital Accra, and fast development and pressure on amenities, Secretary General of the Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) Parliament, John Azumah is calling for relocation of the capital from Accra.
According to John Azumah, it would be difficult to expand the capital Accra in the next fifty (50) years, to contain population increase and amenities to match the population size.
He further lauded the visionary leadership of President Nana Akufo-Addo, in creating six more regions; “I think that a country like Ghana moving forward there is the need for a new national capital”, he said in an interview.
“Accra has gotten chocked, it is not the fault of Accra, it is an ancient capital, if you observe a country like the United Kingdom, for instance, they have tried to develop places like Manchester and Birmingham to pick up some of the things that London would not be able to take; that is not the same with African countries”.
Again, we have constrain on resources and to be able to develop our regional capitals to a full extent, the issue of national capital come to the fore and if we want to look into the future I believe we can have an arrangement, to have our new capital at Kintampo in the Brong-Ahafo Region, he added.
Mr. John Azumah pointed out that, Kintampo is a nice place suitable for agriculture, flat land and along the river Volta where the nation can make use of lake transport straight to Accra through Akonsombo.
There are advantages that come with development of a new place, in terms of infrastructure, business and employment, “we need to explore those opportunities moving into the future. This needs strategic thinking and I believe the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) may have been considering this”.
“We should urge any government that comes to think of having a new capital, some people would talk about resource constrains that is always there, yes there is no country that has been self sufficient in terms of resources”, he said.
In addition what we facing in managing the capital, talk about the floods, it has to do with overcrowding, every year we keep dragging and we have not been able to resolve the flooding issue, he lamented.
“If you are able to move a sizeable business group to another location, it would free Accra for it to be redeveloped properly. We would have a modern capital I believe, even as I am not a geologist”.
Nima in Accra, for instance is a place the President is doing everything to assist them to redevelop, they are resisting because they are not sure of where they would be and how their business would be affected. So if we have an alternative, a new capital where business would start, we would generate new ideas, there would be space to develop and do a lot of new things, people would be prepared to move to have new opportunities.
“We can redevelop Accra as a commercial capital, we can then challenge the Singapore’s with our Tema harbor, develop the whole of the beach from Tema to Accra to a port city”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com