Richard Anane, Minister of transportation, has disclosed that, the Government of with the support of development partners, has invested over US$ 1.12 billion, (¢10 trillion) in the road sector, for the period between 2002 and 2005.

In addition, US$ 100m was invested in the periodic and routine road maintenance works.

He stressed, “we must appreciate that all these investments were made with the object of improving our road sector in order to aid socio-economic development.”

Dr Anane said this at the mid-year review conference of the transport sector at Kumasi , in the Ashanti Region.

The Minister, also MP for Nhyeaiso constituency in Kumasi stated that despite the huge investment made by the people and the support given by our development partners, reports from monitoring teams reveal that over 50% of the maintenance projects have consistently been behind schedule.

According to him, this is why the ministry has established the special monitoring and evaluation task force.

The minister said it has been estimated that ‘over ¢35 billion would have been lost to the state in 2005 through the criminal negligence of these offices,” he lamented.

The Minister further explained that for the year 2006 33% of the total national investment budget has been voted for road construction and maintenance.

According to him, this massive investment has been specially made to ensure that transport is used as a vehicle to achieve the targets set under the growth and poverty reduction strategy and the millennium development goals and therefore for the attainment of a middle income status by the year 2015 .