The Tema Motorway, the 19-kilometre stretch of highway linking Accra with Ghana�s industrial and manufacturing hub, Tema, was one of the numerous prestigious projects conceived and built by the first President of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
The Convention People�s Party (CPP), which was in government in the First Republic, built a modern harbour and a township in Tema which needed an excellent highway to facilitate trade and commerce between the new town and the rest of the country through Accra.
The project formed part of the Seven-Year Development Plan (1963-1970) of the CPP government intended to transform the economic and material conditions of the country.
The motorway project, which was started in 1964 and opened to traffic in 1965, was labelled �prestigious� by the erstwhile National Liberation Movement (NLM), an amalgam of parties opposed to the CPP, which saw the project as a complete waste of the taxpayers� money.
According to the NLM, the money earmarked for the construction of the Tema Motorway, which still remains the only motorway in the country, 56 years after self-rule, could have been used to provide the basic necessities of life for the broad masses of the people.
The motorway was fashioned after the autobahn in Germany and was purposed to be the first motorway system that would link the major cities and towns across the country.
It is, however, sad to note that successive governments after Nkrumah abandoned the idea of building more motorways and even left the Tema Motorway to deteriorate to indescribable levels.
The main feature of the motorway is a dual carriageway with a median or central reservation area which separates the two carriageways which terminate at both ends with a toll booth.
Efforts were made by the CPP government to install street lights on the motorway, but the overthrow of the government by the National Liberation Council (NLC) on February 24, 1966 put paid to that.
The absence of street lights led to an upsurge in criminal activities along the highway, especially during the night, a situation which made it extremely dangerous to use the road during that period.
For more than 30 years, the highway did not witness any major rehabilitation, leading to the development of numerous potholes which caused deadly accidents and traffic congestion.
The development of the potholes was primarily due to the usage of the road by vehicles loaded with cargo exceeding the permissible axle load weight for the highway.
In addition, lack of reflectors, breakdown vehicles and unsafe bridges made driving on the highway in the night unsafe.
However, in 2002, the Kufuor administration attempted to provide street lights for the motorway to abate the crime rate on the highway which defied solutions provided by the country�s security concerns.
The project was to commemorate the country�s Golden Jubilee, but it was suspended due to cable thefts.
Although the regime deployed plainclothes security men along the stretch, the move did not yield the desired result of arresting the people responsible for the cable theft and other crimes.
In 2009, the Mills government undertook the rehabilitation of the motorway at a cost of GHc500,000, with part of it being constructed with epoxy mortar cement which dried in three days.
The eight-week exercise also involved the replacement of concrete slabs which had developed potholes and the repair of the asphalt surface on the shoulders of the road.
It, however, still remains a pale shadow of its former self, as more work is needed to be done to transform it into a first-class highway.
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