<<Print>>

After officially taken over office in January 2013, as the President of the Republic of Ghana, Mr. John Dramani Mahama promised to continue the Better Ghana agenda that was kick-started by the late President John Evans Atta Mills in 2009. True to his words, barely two years of his reign, the Ghana Palaver can confirm that President Mahama has moved the gear higher, as there are many on-going developmental projects across the country. Construction works on the Kwame Nkrumah Circle interchange project, for instance has started in earnest after the President cut the sod for the three-tier interchange in October, 2013. According to the Resident Engineer on the project, Mr. Kweku A. Diafo, the contractors had so far mounted 150 piles, which form the foundation for pillars of the bridges whilst work on the diversion of drains at the project site has also started. The 74.88 million euro project is being jointly financed with credit from the Brazilian Government and the Ghana Government. According to the project design, the first of the interchanges will link the Akasanoma Road to the Nsawam Road, around the Vodafone building. The other interchange will link the Nsawam Road to the Nkrumah Avenue, around the Ghana Commercial Bank building, while the third interchange will link Ring Road Central to Ring Road West. Aside from the three-tier interchange, other roads around the Kwame Nkrumah Circle will be improved. These include the rehabilitation of Ring Road Eat to the Feo Oyo Intersection on Ring Road West. The Ghana Palaver further gathered that the dual carriageway being constructed from the 37 military hospital to link the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel road is also nearing completion. In the area of health, the upgrading works to transform the Ridge Hospital in Accra into a Regional Hospital has also commenced by the construction firm, Messrs Bouygues Bartiment International, a United States of America (USA) Construction company. The expansion is expected to provide the Hospital with ultra-modern facilities and a 600-bed capacity to improve quality and expand access to health care delivery, particularly to its immediate catchment area. The expansion of the Police hospital is also under way and a visit to the site by this paper revealed that, work is about 50 percent completed. Many of such health facilities are also being constructed across the country as government intends to provide quality and accessible health care to all. In the area of education, the construction of 200 Day Senior High Schools by the government has also started in various parts of the country and government has given the assurance that, by the end of its first term in office, all beneficiary communities would get the school. Works are also ongoing to construct the new campus for the University of Health and Allied Science situated in the Volta region and University of Renewable Energy in the Bono Ahafo Region. To ensure that the youth are provided with jobs, President John Mahama has launched a GH�10 million Youth Enterprise Support (YES) initiative, which is in fulfillment of his 2012 campaign promises to assist young Ghanaians with creative and innovative business ideas and plans to achieve their full potential. The government of President Mahama is indeed working to fulfill its electoral promises and the Ghana Palaver would be serializing in subsequent publications, all the projects that government is undertaken. Stay tuned.