The newly built Kwame Nkrumah Interchange is economically beneficial as it helps the public to save money, thereby indirectly putting money in the pockets of citizens, economist Edward Kareweh has said.
At the inauguration of the Interchange on Monday, President John Mahama said US$100 million is lost annually through congestion around that enclave.
With the new infrastructure fully functional, Mr Kareweh said individuals will be saving money “without government putting the monies directly in their pockets”, adding: “All those who passed the place initially and lost money will now be gaining money. It is, however, difficult to bring it to the understanding of everybody, but with the construction of the project, you have saved money.”
He added that the Interchange would facilitate faster movement of goods, creation of services and other businesses, which will be created around the hub.
“This adds to economic improvement. It is something which everyone must appreciate,” he stated.
He indicated that the public should now be able to channel that money into other ventures.
Mr Kareweh held the view that the infrastructure will help to create jobs by employing people to work on the facility and will still create jobs afterwards because professionals will be needed to maintain the facility.
Inaugurating the Interchange, Mr Mahama explained that thousands of jobs would be created through the establishment of the facility.
He said: “With the opening of this interchange, we believe that several thousand more jobs will be created as a result of the trade and economic activity that this project will facilitate. Time is a precious invaluable commodity and once spent, it cannot be recovered. Effective use of time, therefore, has a direct impact on our economy and must be calculated as a contribution to our GDP.
"With the opening of this interchange on which at peak hours is used by about 80,000 vehicles and daily it is estimated to be used by about 200,000 vehicles, reducing travelling time between the Ring Road Central and Feo Eyeo Intersection towards the North Industrial Area from two hours to just approximately five minutes, not only are we saving hundreds of millions of cedis in time wasted by the delay and the travel time, but we are also stimulating business and economic activity."
Source: Classfmonline
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Hmmm!!, Mr. President, which Economist gave you that figure? I am curious! I hope they didn't arrive at this figure from text book definition of value of time. Anyway, the circle project is a step in the right direction, Good job Mr. President!! bravo!
How can anybody disagree with you. Only those with myopic understanding of issues would disagree with you. If as a result of the interchange commuters save just 15 minutes which they used to spend in traffic, multiply that by the number of workers who ply that road on daily basis, multiply by 230 working days in a year and you will see how much is saved in a year, and multiply by the life span of the project and then discount to today. Millions of dollars to be saved. It is becoming uninteresting to engage these krutus that is why NDC sympathizers prefer to keep quiet.
You hypocrite, how will you compare the N1 to the interchange?
US$100 million lost every year due to congestion? How did they measure that. Anyway since you are able to measure that please let us know how much we lost as a result of Dumsor which was endured for well over 3 years.
This is good for Ghana however Mr. President run away from the cost of the interchange. Is it true that the interchange costs more than the 6lane N1 highway from Malam junction to Tetteh Quarshie? Even a lot of people had to be compensated for losing their property.Once again how much did it cost?
Mr Kareweh must note that immediately after the interchange traffic will increase since it is the same old lanes all the vehicles are going to use.