Accra, Sept. 29, GNA - The Ministry of Transportation is to begin implementing the usage of the Otta Seal, made up of natural gravel to tar the country's roads for longer lifespan instead of the chip seal, which wares off quickly.

Mr Magnus Opare Asamoah, Deputy Minister of Transportation, said on Friday that the country currently had about 58,536 kilometres of roads out of which 40,300 kilometres were unpaved and mostly made up of gravel.

In view of the poor nature of these gravel roads, he said it was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain their maintenance and service delivery, hence the need to use natural gravel to seal stony roads, which is economically justifiable. Mr Asamoah was closing a three-day workshop in Accra on the technologies and methods for the surface dressing of unpaved roads, including the use of local gravel materials for the sealing of low volume roads. It was attended by 45 Road Engineers and stakeholders from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. The Deputy Minister said the whole life benefits of sealed roads include lower transport costs in terms of construction, maintenance and vehicle operating costs, increased social benefits and reduced adverse environmental impacts and health and safety problems. He said unsurfaced roads impose logistical, technical and financial burden on the national budget and require continued use of non-renewable resources like gravel.

Mr Asamoah said after touring Botswana, where the Otta Seal was predominantly used, it had become justifiable for the Ministry to implement the use of the material, which costs the same as the chip seal but whose maintenance could last over 30 years compared to the two years of the Chip Seal. He said the technology about Low Volume Sealed Roads (LVSR) had been advanced significantly in Southern African countries and this supported the wisdom of adopting it in Ghana and revising conventional approaches.

The World Bank, which facilitated the workshop, had made available a Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Guideline on LVSR, which the Ministry would consider in planning, designing and construction to ensure good roads, he added. Mr Martin hMensa, Acting Chief Executive of the Ghana Highway Authority noted that there was the need for a political acceptance of the new technology to save the country the trouble of spending huge sums of money on maintenance.

He said well documented case studies had been provided to ensure that the new technology suited local specifications and conditions, adding "good roads provided wealth."