Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA), Dr Frederick Appoh, has warned illegal miners to desist from destroying the country’s railway infrastructure.
Speaking on JoyNews’ The Pulse on Monday, October 6, Dr Appoh emphasised that constructing a railway line is extremely costly, stressing that any form of destruction undermines huge national investments and jeopardises future development.
“The railway infrastructure is a very expensive infrastructure. At the moment, we are looking at about $5 million per kilometre, which is a conservative amount, and some amounts go as far as 49.2 million per kilometre, so allowing this infrastructure to be destroyed by illegal mining is a terrible thing,” he said.
His remarks follow recent reports of extensive damage to railway lines in parts of the Western Region caused by illegal mining activities.
Dr Appoh lamented the significant financial burden involved in railway construction and cautioned that continued destruction could derail the country’s broader infrastructural plans.
“Some of the (destroyed) railways you saw which is currently in circulation, some of the construction go as far back as 1893, so if you have that infrastructure in terms of that length and it is now been destroyed in this nature, it is for what?. We need to ask ourselves as a nation on how we are going to deal with this issue.”
“It is not just the railway sector problem, the problem is that, what is the impact? in the near future, we are not gping to construct for $5 million per kilometre any longer, we are going to construct it for $10 million,” he added.
He urged the perpetrators to immediately halt their activities and called for collective action to safeguard the assets.
Dr. Appoh then called for a 24 hour routine check on the railway facilities in the country, arguing that, non-frequent routine checks by security operatives will not be of help.
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