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Every morning, Fuseini Mohammed straps his daughter, Hikimatu, onto the back of his motorbike for a short ride to school. But the journey along the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom highway in Ghana’s Upper East Region fills him with dread.
“There was a big pothole in front of us,” he recalls of one morning in July 2025. “A dog ran across the road, and I tried to swerve it. We landed right in the pothole.”
The motorbike flipped. Hikimatu’s head hit the tarmac, and she lost consciousness.
“She passed out immediately,” Mohammed tells The Fourth Estate. “By God’s grace, she woke up.”
She now bears a scar behind her head, while Mohammed carries bruises around his arms and feet.
Earmarked for reconstruction, the Bolgatanga–Bawku–Pulmakom highway is one of many road projects abandoned after government contractors stopped work, citing delayed payments linked to the country’s debt troubles.
When debt became the roadblock
Contractors had been pouring gravel, welding girders, and flattening tar on the 116-kilometer Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road. Then, in 2023, the machines fell silent. What had seemed like the long-awaited answer to a region’s infrastructural prayers was now a ghost of progress.
Ghana’s external debt restructuring hit hard.
It starved the project of cash. After debt-to-GDP ratio reached 78% and external debt accounted for over 40% of GDP, the country entered formal negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout to salvage the broken economy. This led to the then Akufo-Addo administration suspending all external debt servicing in December 2022, which immediately triggered creditor restrictions.
“Because the government stopped paying interest on its loans to foreign banks, those banks are also not able to give money to the contractors,” a former Deputy Roads and Highways Minister, Stephen Pambiin Jalulah, told Bolgatanga-based A1 Radio in 2023.
The road had stalled at 72% completion due to debt restructuring, former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta told parliament back in November 2023.
When the new government of John Mahama assumed office, Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson, Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, revealed that $3 billion in loans remained undisbursed due to debt restructuring; $300 million in contractor payments, including the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road, were outstanding, and $1.1 billion in cost overruns loomed.
“It would take at least 12 years to complete them,” Forson warned, citing IMF-imposed restrictions that cap annual disbursements for bilateral loans at $250 million.
Debt snapshot: Bolgatanga–Bawku–Pulmakom Road (as of Dec 2024)
| Facility Type | Creditor | Amount (GH¢) | Share |
| Commercial Facility | IBL | 517.17m | 68.5% |
| UKEF Facility (Covered) | UK Export Finance | 121.15m | 16% |
| UKEF Facility (Direct) | UK Export Finance | 121.15m | 16% |
| Total Disbursed | 759.47m | 100% |
Source: The Annual Public Debt Report for the 2024 Financial Year
Source: The Annual Public Debt Report for the 2024 Financial Year
According to the Annual Public Debt Report for the 2024 Financial Year, a total of GH¢759.47 million had been disbursed for the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road project. The financing was structured through a mix of commercial facilities and UK Export Finance arrangements, highlighting how much of Ghana’s borrowing was tied to this single road. Yet, despite the significant outlay, the project remained incomplete.
Ghana’s debt spiral
Warnings came long before the collapse of the economy.
“It’s just a matter of time that the economy will just collapse. We have been too wasteful and we are here because of our actions and inactions,” economist with the University of Ghana Business School, Prof. Godfred Alufar Bokpin, told Joy News back in 2022.
For his part, political risk analyst, Dr. Theo Acheampong said: “Ghana does not have a revenue problem. Our problem is expenditure and the quality of spending.”
By mid-2022, inflation hit 23.6%, food inflation 26.6%, and debt surpassed 78% of GDP. In July, Ghana returned to the IMF – its 17th time – under terms that froze infrastructure funding. The Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road became one of the most visible casualties.
Source: 2024 Budget Statement and Economic Policy
A decade of delays and injuries
The road’s troubled history stretches back further. In 2012, Isaac Agongo, then 28, lost his leg in a crash on the unlit Kulaa bridge, a stretch of the road, leaving him practically begging to make ends meet.
“These days, help doesn’t come free,” he tells The Fourth Estate.
In 2016, during President John Mahama’s first term, he cut the sod for the reconstruction of the same road. The 116-kilometer stretch, linking Ghana to Burkina Faso and Togo to promote the socio-economic development in the region, was budgeted at $160 million. Advance payments were made to the contractors, Queiroz Galvao, and their Ghanaian partners, Mawums Limited, but delays plagued the project. By late 2017, only 35km had been rehabilitated.
The Audit-General’s performance audit report on the project, issued in November 2019, found procurement irregularities including sole-sourcing without approval, inflated costs, and poor planning.
According to the report, Queiroz Galvao’s initial proposal of US$176.1 million was 27.87% higher than the Ghana Highways Authority’s (GHA) estimate of US$137.7 million, indicating either poor initial cost assessment by the authority or inflated pricing by the contractor.
Following negotiations in June 2016, the final contract sum was set at US$160.3 million, still 8.59% above GHA’s revised estimates. According to the performance audit report, the substantial variance suggests inadequate preparation and cost control mechanisms.
The procurement of supervision consultancy services followed a similarly problematic pattern, with GHA opting for restricted tendering rather than open competition. The audit concluded that the procurement methods reflected “lack of planning for the project”.
By 2020, new loans revived the project. By September 2022, 70 km of work on the road had been completed. While Kulaa and Tilli bridges were 70% done, the Kobore bridge had barely started. Then the debt storm hit. Work stopped again.
The human toll
For residents and commuters, the road’s failure is a daily reality. Raymond Ayinne, owner of East Side Homes, says he loses at least GH¢1,000 weekly in revenue because patrons do not want to traverse the roughly 200-metre untarred and pothole-ridden road to his lodge.
“The road is narrow, busy, dusty, and bad. Cars and motorbikes meander to avoid potholes, often knocking down children on bicycles,” Mr Ayinne tells The Fourth Estate.
The situation is not different for driver Paul Apiga at the Zebilla-Bawku station, who spends much of his earnings on repairs. “Shock absorbers, lower arms, tyres – we replace them regularly. These things are now very expensive,” he laments.
Official records from the National Road Safety Authority show 439 crashes, 472 injuries, and 258 deaths in the Upper East Region in the past three years, with at least 15% on the Bolgatanga–Bawku stretch. “The numbers may be more,” admitted Road Safety official John Quarshie, citing underreporting.
A fragile restart
In July 2025, the IMF approved Ghana’s fourth Extended Credit Facility review, unlocking $367 million. The government submitted a list of 24 projects, including this road, for completion by 2028.
By August, the contractor, Queiroz Galvão, had mobilised staff back to the site. But insiders say no funds had yet been released. “The government has promised to pay, but we are mobilising with our own resources,” a source told The Fourth Estate
For over a decade, the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road has been a ribbon of broken promises. From sod-cuttings to stalled equipment, it mirrors Ghana’s fiscal journey: hope interrupted by debt, debt reshaped through restructuring, and restructuring slowed by creditor politics.
Beyond policy briefs are lives like those of Isaac Agongo, who lost his leg, and Fuseini Mohammed, who still shudders when he passes the pothole that nearly killed his daughter.
Until the asphalt is laid from end to end, the road remains a scar — where every rut holds the memory of near tragedy, and the silent knowledge that the next ride to school could be the one that changes a life forever.
