[ 2014-06-22 ]

A New Capital City For Ghana?
Many countries relocated their capital cities
after piling up very convincing reasons why new
capital cities were necessary. Nigeria and Ivory
Coast built new capital cities. Other countries
like Morocco, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Cameroon, Benin,
and South Africa have also done it. Equatorial
Guinea is in the process of doing it.

Lagos was the old capital of Nigeria and the city
lies in the coast of the country. Lagos is
Africa's second most populous city. Abuja became
the next political capital city of Nigeria and the
reason for relocation will be explained later in
the article. Côte d'Ivoire built a new capital at
Yamoussokro to replace Abidjan as the seat of
government. Fes was the earliest capital city of
Morocco. This capital was changed and relocated to
Rabat as the new seat of government and it has
remained the same today. Cameroun on the other
hand, had its first capital city called Buea When
Buea became congested and over-populated, the
capital was built in Yaoundé. The old capital
city for Ethiopia was Axum which was 365
kilometres, northeast of Gondar. A new capital was
built at Addis Ababa. The old capital city of
Benin was Porto Novo. A new capital city, Cotonou,
was built to replace Porto Novo. Cotonou,
therefore, became the de facto capital city and
the economic hub of Benin.

There are many Ghanaians who think Ghana must
follow suit and leave Accra which is so crowded
and build a new capital where our leaders,
politicians and the entire population will find
most convenient, less crowded and central.
Locating the capital city at a central place will
be more strategic and will serve as a growth pole.
A growth pole is a nucleus or core from where
growth spreads in all directions outwards to the
periphery. Undoubtedly Accra is limited by its
position as it cannot grow southwards due to the
sea.  The location near the sea also makes
it vulnerable to amphibious attack.

For everyone to have confidence in the new capital
city, it should not play a dual role of being the
capital city of a region and that of the
country Ghana. If the new capital city is made to
play a dual role, it may experience similar
problems which Accra has experienced since
independence. These include heightened pressure of
infrastructural facilities
and over-population manifesting itself in
economic and social ills such as high cost of
living, high rents, traffic congestion, slums,
high mortality rate and drug addiction. It is also
a confirmed fact that Accra lies on an
earthquake fault line.

Many may have different suggestions as to where a
new capital should be built but it would be
expected that a national plan should be rolled out
so that a new capital could be constructed at
Kintampo which is largely believed to be the
central point of Ghana. Such a location must have
enough land for future developments such as
airports, housing complexes, sports fields,
gardens, schools and colleges. Such a capital city
should disallow heavy industries which pollute the
environment. All the pedestrian walk-ways in the
city must be covered with pavement blocks. All the
roads including the city centre must be lined with
trees and colourful flowers. Such details will
make the new city comparable to any city in the
world. Accra will, however, remain the commercial
capital while the new city that would be
constructed will be the nation's administrative
capital.

It will be similar to Nigeria where Abuja became
the new federal capital while Lagos serves
as the commercial capital. Even when a new
capital is created, Accra will still maintain its
commercial appeal in much the same way as Lagos
and Abidjan.

The population in Accra is growing steadily and if
care is not taken, the demands this rapid
increase in the population of Accra will make on
the city's administration will be
nightmarish. Already all service
delivery are suffering, ranging from water,
electricity, transport and health.

What a new capital means is that the seat of
government will move there, parliament will
relocate to the new capital, all foreign embassies
and government services and agencies will
also follow suit. When the construction of a new
city gets underway, not less than ten thousand
Ghanaians of different skills and professions will
be employed until the project is completed. These
include city planners, architects, masons,
plumbers, electrical engineers, skilled and
labourers, and many more. Reconstruction of a new
capital can begin as soon as Ghana gets total
control of her oil revenue. If indeed this total
control becomes a reality one day, all efforts
must be geared towards checking the corruption
which will arise when the oil revenue begins to
flow in.

Perhaps we can learn from Nigeria which depended
on her oil wealth to construct a new capital city,
thus creating jobs and numerous multiplier
effects. However, corruption was at its apogee and
with oil revenue, many scams went unchecked. Many
Nigerian contractors and politicians became super
rich from dubious contracts. Suppliers had a field
day as they overinflated federal contracts.

If a new capital is to be built in Ghana, I
will suggest that our policy makers should
go to Germany to look for well tested and
experienced contractors to provide us quality
service. Even the Austrians, French, Italians and
Czechs could be considered. I will recommend that
our policy-makers research on how major
cities were planned and executed in the 18th
and 19th centuries. This will serve as a guideline
for Ghana's future construction of a new capital.

 
Stephen Atta Owusu
Author: Dark Faces at Crossroads
Email: Stephen.owusu@email.comm

Source - Stephen Atta Owusu

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