NDC gives conflicting figures on Kwame Nkrumah Interchange cost

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has provided conflicting figures on the cost of the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange in a bid to challenge claims by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) that it was inflated.

Former Deputy Communications Minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu said last week, there was no doubt that the Kwame Nkrumah interchange cost $260million.

“It is $260m. Absolutely, there is no problem,” he said in a debate with a spokesperson for the Vice President, Dr Gideon Boako on Citi TV.

But at a press conference organised by the party on Monday, the National Communications Officer, Sammy Gyamfi, said the cost of the actual interchange was $90million.

Photo: NDC National Communications Officer Sammy Gyamfi

He said the much-talked about infrastructure is two “separate and distinct” projects, consisting of the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange and the Ring Road Flyover.

To approve his point, he said parliament approved two separate loan agreements for the projects. On August 12, 2012, parliament approved the interchange project at 74.8 million euros equivalent to $90 million at the time.

Two years later, the Mahama government on 1st October, 2014 laid before Parliament another export credit facility for the design and construction of another project, the Ring Road Flyover, at a cost $170 million.

The NDC National Communications Officer said Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, was “disingenuous and shameful” to have lumped the cost of the two projects and “create the impression that same is inflated.”

Sammy Gyamfi said Dr. Bawumia had told “a barefaced lie.”

During the infrastructure debate on Citi TV, Dr. Gideon Boako drew Felix Kwakye Ofosu’s attention to comments he said were made by some NDC communicators who said the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange cost 74m Euros.

But Felix Kwakye Ofosu rejected this claim and stressed that “Who has said 74million Euros?” Nobody at least in an official capacity has ever said it cost 74m euros.”

The former deputy minister Felix Kwakye Ofosu like Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia appear to have considered the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange as one project and not two.

But Sammy Gyamfi wants them to be treated distinctly. However, when the two ‘separate’ projects are put together, it comes back to $260million.

The controversy over the cost of infrastructure arose after Dr. Bawumia suggested the projects done under the Mahama-led NDC government did not offer value-for-money.

He compared interchanges under construction in the Akufo-Addo government and one completed under the Mahama government.

Dr Bawumia mentioned the Tema, Pokuase and Obetsebi Lamptey interchanges in the Greater Accra Region and Tamale in the Northern region, all at a total cost of $289million.

But the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange in Accra alone was constructed at $260million, he compared.

“I would just leave that for you to ponder,” he said, suggesting his government has been more prudent than the NDC when it was in power.