The funding method of the ambitious Accra-Kumasi Expressway has come under serious scrutiny as policy analyst Alfred Appiah has questioned the government’s decision to channel almost the entire allocation of oil revenues and mineral royalties under the Big Push programme into the proposed expressway.
Alfred Appiah argues that the project is one of the few major infrastructure investments capable of attracting private financing.
In justifying his position, the analyst maintained that the Accra-Kumasi Expressway is arguably the most commercially viable project under the Big Push initiative because it can potentially recover its investment costs over time through toll collections, making it an attractive proposition for private investors.
For him, with such an attractive project, the financing structure raises important questions about whether scarce public resource revenues are being deployed in the most efficient way.
“Total Big Push disbursements from oil receipts and mineral royalties in 2025 amounted to 11.1 billion cedis. If 10.9 billion of that was allocated to the Accra-Kumasi Expressway, then virtually the entire amount went to a single project,” he observed.
Instead of relying heavily on oil revenues and mineral royalties, he suggested that government could leverage private capital to finance the expressway, allowing limited public funds to be redirected to other critical infrastructure projects that may not be commercially attractive.
“Of all the Big Push projects, the Accra-Kumasi Expressway is arguably the most bankable. It is one of the few projects that could potentially pay for itself over time through toll revenue and is also the most likely to attract private investment,” he maintained.
He added, “That’s why I’m surprised that the government is allocating such a large share of the oil revenues and mineral royalties earmarked for the Big Push to this particular project, rather than leveraging more private capital.
Alfred Appiah’s comments also cast doubt on the financing strategy for the remaining Big Push projects.
He questioned how projects such as Dodo Pepesu, Adabokrom and Bediako Junction would be funded if nearly all the available resource revenues were committed to the Accra-Kumasi Expressway.
He is therefore raising concerns over how Ghana should finance large-scale infrastructure, whether to deploy scarce public revenues on projects capable of paying for themselves or reserve those funds for socially important but less commercially viable developments while attracting private investment into bankable projects.
