The Minister of Railway Development, John Peter Amewu has disclosed that an intended sky train project in Accra by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government has been shelved.
He said the government has no plans to go ahead with the project because of its cost.
Speaking in an interview on Accra based Citi TV, the Minister said funding for the project has become problematic.
“The sky train that we are talking about is the one that is going to run on columns in the sky like the ones you see in Dubai but no agreement has been signed.”
“It is not possible to be done now. I don’t see any sky train being done in the next 3-4 years. There is not going to be any Sky train in the country. It is not possible.”
He also added that funding for the construction of some of the already started projects is becoming problematic for the government.
“Rail construction takes a lot of time and it is also capital intensive. A kilometre of a railway line is about four to five times the cost of building a concrete infrastructure in terms of building an asphaltic road.”
“So considering the fiscal space that we have in the country, facilities to absorb it is becoming problematic for the government and you know our current debt to GDP which is in excess of 70%.”
In November 2019, the government through the then Minister for the sector, Joe Ghartey, signed an agreement for the construction of the Accra SkyTrain Project on the sidelines of the African Investment Forum in South Africa.
The proposed initiative in Accra provides for the development of five routes, four of which are comprised of radial routes that originate at the proposed SkyTrain Terminal, at the heart of Accra, at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, and one route that provides an intra-city commuter loop distribution service, also emanating from Circle.
The project envisaged a total track length across all routes of 194 kilometres.
Source: www.pulse.com.gh
