- Accra–Kumasi Expressway Jobs Claim Premature as Project Remains Preparatory — CPS
The Centre for Policy Scrutiny has challenged the government’s claim that its flagship Big Push programme will generate 490,000 jobs, arguing that the absence of verifiable employment data makes it impossible to determine whether public infrastructure spending is delivering the promised labour-market benefits.
The policy organisation said progress on roads, industrial facilities and other development projects should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that jobs have been created.
Presenting CPS’s assessment of Ghana’s 2026 Mid-Year Budget Review, labour economist Dr Prince Adjei said the government had yet to publish a credible monitoring framework capable of identifying the number, duration and quality of jobs attributable to the programme.
“The promise was 490,000 jobs, but as of the mid-year review we do not have verifiable data to confirm that these jobs have actually been created,” Dr Adjei said.
The intervention places greater scrutiny on the employment assumptions underpinning one of the government’s most prominent development programmes.
The Big Push is intended to accelerate infrastructure delivery and stimulate economic activity through investment in roads, transport links, industrial facilities and other productive assets.
Government officials have presented the programme not only as an infrastructure initiative but also as an important source of employment for young people, construction workers, engineers, artisans and businesses participating in project supply chains.
CPS argued, however, that those claims must be supported by evidence showing how many people have been employed, where the jobs are located and whether they are temporary, indirect or permanent.
Without that classification, headline employment figures could combine short-term construction work with more durable jobs created by completed infrastructure, creating an unclear picture of the programme’s impact.
The think tank said only 28 of the 87 Big Push projects it assessed had progressed beyond 25.00% completion.
The remaining 59 projects were still below that threshold, suggesting that much of the programme remained in the early stages of implementation.
The figures do not necessarily mean that no employment has been generated. Construction projects can begin hiring before reaching significant physical completion.
But CPS said the limited progress across most of the portfolio made the full 490,000-job target difficult to verify and raised questions about the timetable over which those jobs were expected to materialise.
The organisation also questioned the projected employment impact of the Accra–Kumasi Expressway.
The project has been presented as capable of generating approximately 80,000 jobs, but CPS said it remained largely at the preparatory stage, with right-of-way clearance and other preliminary activities still ongoing.
At that stage, any employment generated is likely to be substantially lower than the total projected over the project’s construction cycle, the think tank argued.
The distinction matters because estimates prepared before construction begins are projections rather than confirmed labour-market outcomes.
A credible evaluation would need to compare the number of workers actually employed against the forecast, while also accounting for subcontractors, local suppliers and indirect economic activity linked to the project.
CPS said similar disclosure gaps affected other initiatives associated with the government’s employment strategy.
Agricultural enclave roads, agro-processing facilities, garment factories and apprenticeship programmes had not published sufficient data on the number of jobs created, the categories of workers employed or the duration of the opportunities provided, it said.
Infrastructure investment can create several types of employment.
Direct jobs include engineers, machine operators, labourers and administrative staff working on the project. Indirect employment may arise among suppliers of cement, steel, fuel, transport and other goods and services.
Induced jobs can also emerge when workers spend their incomes in surrounding communities.
The wider economic benefits can be substantial, but combining the categories without explanation risks overstating immediate employment outcomes.
Temporary construction positions may disappear once a road, factory or public facility is completed. Permanent jobs depend on whether the resulting asset supports sustained production, trade, investment or service delivery.
CPS therefore called for the government to shift its reporting away from budget allocations and physical project progress towards measurable labour-market results.
It recommended the establishment of a national job-creation dashboard providing regular information on the number of permanent, temporary and indirect jobs generated by public investment programmes.
Such a platform could record the location of each job, the age and gender of workers, the sector involved, the duration of employment and the amount of public expenditure associated with each outcome.
It could also distinguish new jobs from existing positions transferred between projects or companies.
That distinction would help prevent double counting and allow policymakers to calculate the cost of employment creation across competing programmes.
For investors and development partners, credible job data would provide evidence of whether public expenditure was generating wider economic returns beyond the completion of physical infrastructure.
For Parliament and civil society, it would improve oversight of programmes promoted as responses to youth unemployment and underemployment.
The absence of transparent employment metrics is not unique to the Big Push. Governments frequently announce expected job numbers based on feasibility studies, investment projections and economic multipliers.
Those estimates can be useful during project planning, but they become misleading if later presented as confirmed achievements without post-implementation verification.
CPS’s criticism does not dispute that infrastructure investment can support employment.
Rather, it challenges the government to demonstrate the connection between individual projects and actual jobs through auditable data.
The organisation’s findings also suggest that the timing of employment claims should reflect the stage of project implementation.
Projects below 25.00% completion may have begun creating jobs, but they are unlikely to have delivered their full employment potential. Projects still undergoing land acquisition or right-of-way clearance should be assessed separately from those in active construction or operation.
For the government, publishing detailed employment data could strengthen rather than weaken the Big Push narrative.
Verified results would allow the administration to demonstrate which projects are creating jobs most efficiently and identify those requiring intervention.
It would also help align training and apprenticeship programmes with the skills demanded by contractors and future operators.
The central issue is whether the 490,000 target represents a credible labour-market commitment or an aggregate projection that cannot yet be tested.
CPS’s assessment suggests that the programme may be advancing physically, but its employment record remains largely undocumented.
Until the government publishes evidence separating planned jobs from those actually created, the Big Push’s most politically important promise will remain difficult to verify.
