- PURC Moves to Stop Road Projects from Destroying Utility Networks as Big Push Accelerates
Ghana’s accelerated infrastructure drive is exposing a costly weakness in the way public projects are planned and executed: roads can be built while water pipelines, electricity networks and other critical utility infrastructure remain vulnerable to damage from the very construction intended to improve the economy.
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission is now moving to close that gap by pushing for tighter coordination among the Ministry of Roads and Highways, contractors and utility companies under the government’s Big Push programme.
At the centre of the proposed framework is a basic but potentially consequential requirement: utility providers will be expected to supply contractors with accurate maps showing the location of major pipelines, transmission lines and distribution networks before excavation and construction advance.
“We’ll require the utility service providers to make available to the contractors all the maps that indicate all major pipelines, including transmission and distribution lines, to the contractors, so that they will use it as a guide in their construction activities,” Dr Shafic Suleman, Executive Secretary of PURC, said during a media engagement in the Western Region.
The intervention reflects an attempt to move infrastructure management away from a reactive model, where utilities repair damaged systems after construction accidents, towards a preventative model in which those risks are identified before machinery enters the ground.
When a road contractor cuts through a major water pipeline, the immediate result may be a disruption in supply to households and businesses. But the financial cost does not end there. Ghana Water Limited may have to mobilise emergency repair teams, procure replacement materials and excavate sections of the same road infrastructure that government has just paid to construct.
The result is effectively a double cost to the public sector: first, the cost of building the road, and second, the cost of repairing avoidable damage to another public asset.
The same principle applies to electricity infrastructure. Damage to underground cables or distribution networks can produce service interruptions, impose restoration costs on utilities and weaken the economic benefit of newly completed transport infrastructure.
For the Big Push to deliver value for money, therefore, construction cannot be treated as a series of isolated projects.
The roads, power systems, water networks and telecommunications infrastructure that support economic activity are interconnected assets. Building one while damaging another reduces the net return on public investment.
PURC’s proposed approach is therefore important not because infrastructure mapping is technically complex, but because it introduces a clearer system of accountability before construction begins.
Dr Suleman said contractors that damage critical utility infrastructure after being given the relevant maps could be required to bear the cost of restoring services.
Under a weak accountability regime, the cost of accidental damage can be shifted to utility providers, and ultimately to consumers or taxpayers. Under a stricter framework, contractors would have a stronger financial reason to conduct due diligence, verify underground infrastructure and adjust construction methods before excavation. That could also protect the already constrained capital budgets of utilities.
Every cedi Ghana Water or an electricity service provider spends repairing avoidable construction damage is a cedi that cannot be used for network expansion, maintenance, metering, treatment capacity or service quality improvements.
The issue becomes more important as Ghana scales up infrastructure spending. The Big Push is intended to accelerate road and other public infrastructure development across the country. But an expansion in construction activity also increases the number of points at which new road alignments, drains and excavation works can intersect with existing utility networks.
Without reliable mapping and institutional coordination, the scale of the programme could magnify infrastructure conflicts that already exist.
PURC is also encouraging consumers to play a role in enforcing the system. Households and businesses experiencing water or electricity disruptions linked to construction activities have been urged to lodge complaints so the regulator can intervene and establish responsibility.
The Commission says it has already received and resolved some complaints and has engaged the Roads Ministry over the need for contractors to safeguard utility infrastructure. That consumer-feedback mechanism could help expose recurring problem areas, but the more important reform is preventing damage before consumers lose service.
Modern infrastructure development increasingly depends on integrating the planning of roads, utilities and communications networks. Where agencies plan independently, conflicts tend to emerge during construction. Where projects are coordinated around shared spatial information, the risk of accidental utility strikes falls significantly.
For Ghana, developing more reliable underground and roadside infrastructure maps could become one of the less visible but more important foundations of efficient capital spending.
During PURC’s visit to the Daboase Water Treatment Plant, attention also turned to a major expansion that is expected to improve potable water production for Sekondi-Takoradi and surrounding communities.
The new facility has a design capacity of 100,000 cubic metres of potable water per day, equivalent to about 22 million gallons. That represents a major increase in treatment capability and is intended to replace older infrastructure that has been operating for decades.
But greater production capacity alone cannot guarantee better water supply. Dr Suleman said Ghana Water had provided assurances that the transmission pipeline connecting Daboase to Sekondi-Takoradi would be expanded in the second phase of the project, alongside additional treatment infrastructure.
That highlights another fundamental infrastructure principle: capacity added at one point in a network can be neutralised by bottlenecks elsewhere.
A treatment plant capable of producing significantly more potable water cannot deliver its full economic benefit if transmission and distribution systems do not have the capacity to move that water efficiently to consumers.
A high-quality road can improve mobility, lower transport costs and stimulate economic activity. But if its construction disrupts water or power services, part of that benefit is lost elsewhere in the economy. Infrastructure value therefore depends increasingly on integration rather than the performance of individual projects viewed in isolation.
PURC has warned that illegal mining continues to pollute raw water sources feeding treatment systems, increasing costs and threatening the sustainability of potable water production. Raw-water turbidity at Daboase reportedly reached 11,955 NTU on August 14, reflecting severe pollution along the Pra River.
More heavily polluted raw water requires larger quantities of treatment chemicals, greater processing intensity and potentially more maintenance expenditure. If contamination and siltation become severe enough, treatment can become technically difficult or economically unsustainable.
That means Ghana can invest heavily in modern treatment infrastructure while simultaneously allowing environmental degradation upstream to weaken the return on that investment.
GoldBod and Ghana Water Limited signed a GH¢8.40 million agreement in July to rehabilitate the Bonsa, Daboase and Sekyere Heman water systems after assessments identified severe siltation, channel instability and recurring intake blockages linked partly to illegal mining.
That expenditure reinforces the broader point. Ghana’s infrastructure challenge is not simply a shortage of capital. It is also a coordination and asset-protection problem.
Public money can build roads, expand water treatment and strengthen electricity networks, but those investments lose value when projects are executed without sufficient regard for other assets or when environmental damage undermines infrastructure after it is built.
The Big Push will therefore need to be judged by more than kilometres of roads completed or the number of projects commissioned.
The real measure of success will be whether Ghana creates an integrated infrastructure system in which roads, pipelines, power networks, treatment facilities and environmental protections reinforce rather than undermine one another.
That is why PURC’s proposed mapping and accountability framework matters. It may appear administrative, but it addresses a central value-for-money question: can Ghana build new infrastructure without damaging the infrastructure it already owns?
