The Minister for Roads and Highways, Governs Kwame Agbodza, has criticized his predecessor, Francis Asenso-Boakye, over delays in the Suame Interchange project, pointing out what he called misplaced priorities during the previous administration.
Mr. Agbodza noted that the over $100 million spent on the National Cathedral by the NPP government could have funded at least half of the Suame Interchange project in Kumasi.
“More than $100 million went into the National Cathedral,” he stated, responding to Mr. Asenso-Boakye’s remarks about the redesign of the interchange. “With that amount, we could have completed half of the Suame Interchange, saving the people of the Ashanti Region from years of delays and inconvenience.”
He emphasized that the current redesign, which omits the fourth-tier bridge, is a practical response to new road developments, including the Kumasi Outer Ring Road under the Big Push Programme. “The construction of the outer ring road will reroute most traffic heading north from the city center, reducing the capacity needed at Suame,” he explained.
Additionally, Mr. Agbodza highlighted unresolved expropriation and compensation issues left by the previous administration, which made the original four-tier plan financially and logistically unfeasible. “The fourth-tier bridge would have impacted several commercial properties, the Suame Police Station, and parts of Garden City Mall land, with costs exceeding half of the initial budget,” he said.
The Minister urged the Minority to focus on practical solutions instead of politicizing infrastructure development. “Kumasi deserves the best, and this modification, along with ongoing complementary road projects, will create a modern, efficient road network for the city and the Ashanti Region,” he concluded.
On Monday, February 9, 2026, the Ashanti Caucus of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Parliament strongly criticized the government’s decision to scale down the Suame Interchange Project from its original four-tier design to a two-tier configuration, warning that the move will fail to resolve Kumasi’s traffic congestion and could lock the city into long-term transport challenges.
The Caucus described the move, justified by government on the basis of debt-related constraints and contractor drawdown challenges as technically flawed and inconsistent with sound urban transport planning.
At press conference, the Member of Parliament for Bantama and former Minister for Roads and Highways, Francis Asenso-Boakye, stressed that the interchange was deliberately designed as a four-tier, grade-separated system following extensive traffic modelling to address both current and future traffic volumes in Ghana’s second-largest city.
“The original design was not arbitrary. Every tier performs a specific traffic-separation function. Reducing it to two tiers fundamentally undermines the integrity of the entire system,” he warned.
The MPs noted that Kumasi is not only a regional capital but a critical national transport hub linking major north–south and east–west corridors. Persistent congestion across Suame, Krofrom, Bantama, Abrepo Junction, Anomangye, Magazine, Abusuakruwa, and the wider metropolis, they said, has already reached intolerable levels.
