President John Mahama says the government is constructing buildings for 16 new senior high schools to reduce congestion in existing schools and help bring an end to the double-track system by 2027.
The President who is on a two-day official visit to the Upper West Region as part of his Resetting Ghana Tour made the disclosure during an inspection of ongoing Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) projects at Han Senior High School (HAN SHS).
“We’ve just approved another World Bank facility that is to end the double track system and so for the schools that are still running double track, we’re going to expand the facility so that all the children can go to school at the same time. Under that project too, we’re building brand new secondary schools so that we can ease the congestion in the existing schools,” he revealed.
President Mahama began his tour with an inspection of the Wa-Han Road that links the Upper West Region to the Upper East. Hitherto a deplorable road that has recorded several armed robbery cases and breakdown of vehicles, there’s progressive construction of the road that will meet a 24- month deadline.
Road Minister Kwame Governs Agbodza says government has created a necessary environment and support to contractors under the flagship Big Push agenda to open up the country.
“We shall complete the full section by the end of 2027. Some of the contractors are way ahead of schedule already. This section is probably the most difficult section,” he said.
“Almost all the sections are ahead of this one and so we are on schedule as you directed. For the people on this corridor, the story of people not using this road is simply because it was very terrible and you can already see that when you want to go to Bolga from here, people are already using it and the time they are taking is even getting shorter even before we finish it,” he added.
The President Mahama recounted his childhood days plying the road and the challenges he had.
“We’re happy that he’s doing this road. As he finishes, there are many other roads that we have scoped in the Upper West and so we’ll allocate several other roads to them. I just want to assure people, everybody thinks that we can do all their roads at once. We cannot do that. There’s a limit to the budget that we have and so this is Big Push phase one. We’re scoping Big Push phase two and there’ll be a Big Push phase three,” he assured.
The President later visited Kaliu where the 24-hour market is under construction. He praised the contractors for the progress made so far.
Moments thereafter, the President addressed the Han community on the free primary health care program with its launch to cater for the health needs of the people of the Upper West Region.
The President will continue the tour on Saturday where he will address the region with his team of ministers on their stewardship.
