As the government races to find a lasting solution to the current transportation chaos in Accra and other major cities across the country, the Accra branch of CUTS International is proposing the establishment of an Accra City Transport Authority to help deal with the situation.
This call was made by the CUTS Accra in a press release on Saturday on the crisis that has mainly rocked the national capital and other parts of the country.
According to the West African Regional Director of CUTS International, Appiah Kusi Adomako (Esq.), the establishment of such an authority can address the root cause of the problem and bring relief to struggling commuters.
The Daily Struggle of Passengers
For the past months, commuting in the capital has become a daily struggle for survival. Every morning and evening, commuters experience long queues for tro-tros with no hope in sight. Buses are also stuck in traffic as commuters are squeezed shoulder to shoulder when they finally get one.
Given the scarce public transport and the heavy traffic situation, what should be a 30-minute journey often stretches into two exhausting hours or even more.
Traders and shoppers who go to the Central Business District, office workers heading to the central business district, and students racing to get to school on time, the daily commute has become a test of endurance, stamina, and survival of the fittest.
The sad aspect is how some of the tro-tro drivers or operators have taken advantage of the situation to exploit passengers. They either do a “short-short” route or exorbitantly increase the fares. The situation is not only inimical to emotional and physical health, it is also greatly affecting finances and productivity.
It is in the light of this growing hardship that has prompted CUTS International Accra, a leading research and public policy think tank that seeks the welfare of consumers, to call for a bold rethink of how transportation in the capital is managed.
One City, Too Many Decision Centres
At the heart of Accra’s transport problems, CUTS Accra argues, is a governance mismatch. Although Accra functions as one interconnected city, it is now governed by more than twenty metropolitan, municipal, and sub-metropolitan assemblies, each making transport-related decisions largely on its own.
Roads, drainage systems, housing developments, and major transport routes cut across several jurisdictions, yet planning and coordination remain fragmented.
According to CUTS, this has weakened accountability and made it nearly impossible to manage traffic flow, public transport routes, and infrastructure upgrades in a coherent way.
“You cannot run a single city with multiple transport decision centres working in isolation. Urban movement does not respect political boundaries. Planning must follow how people live and commute,” the Director of the West Africa Regional Centre of CUTS International emphasized.
How Accra Got Here
CUTS traces the roots of the problem to Accra’s administrative evolution. Between 1989 and 2017, the city moved from being managed by a single metropolitan authority to about twenty-four assemblies.
The think tank was emphatic that decentralization itself is not the problem. Local governance, it notes, has clear benefits, including bringing decision-making closer to communities.
However, the bane has been the failure of the state to establishment a city-wide transportation authority to oversee transport in the city despite the decentralization.
“The creation of multiple assemblies was not a mistake. The mistake was failing to build a city-level transport authority to coordinate planning after the fragmentation.”
The CUTS International boss indicates that in a city where most residents commute daily toward one central business district, running transport policy in silos has created gridlock, confusion, and inefficiency.
The Case for an Accra City Transport Authority
To fix this, CUTS is proposing the establishment of an Accra City Transportation Authority. Such an authority would be responsible for regulating, planning, and coordinating transportation across the entire capital.
Instead of each assembly acting independently, a central body would oversee traffic management, public transport routes, infrastructure planning, and long-term mobility strategies.
CUTS believes this would lead to better-aligned road works, smoother traffic flow, clearer accountability, and a more commuter-friendly city.
Most importantly, it would reflect how Accra actually works as a living, moving city, rather than how it is divided on paper.
He stressed, “CUTS is calling for the establishment of an Accra City Transportation Authority with legal power to plan routes, terminals, and services across all assemblies.”
The Bottomline
CUTS International believes that what commuters are looking for are shorter travel times, more reliable public transport, fewer surprises caused by uncoordinated road closures, and less money spent on fuel and fares.
CUTS argues that transportation planning must focus on the lived experience of commuters, not administrative boundaries.
As Accra continues to grow, the think tank warns that failing to act will only deepen congestion, raise economic costs, and worsen the daily stress faced by millions.
