The Minister for Railway Development, John Peter Amewu, has disclosed that the government would not be able to construct any sky train in the country.
The Minister emphatically stated that this project is impossible.
It is a sharp contradiction to the promise given by the former Minister lawyer Joe Ghartey.
The former Minister in November 2019, 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 was to provide 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 was to cover a total track length across all routes of 194 kilometres.
But speaking on Citi TV in an interview, the current Minister said the government would not go ahead with the sky train project.
He explained that the government cannot fund the project because it is capital intensive.
“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.”
“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%.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
