Mole National Park to open up: Due to road rehabilitation works
It is one of the seven national parks in the country with diverse plant and animal life and a place where tourists love to visit as it brings them closer to nature. In fact, it has the largest wildlife shelter among all the parks, but for many years, the Mole National Park has remained distant from visitors who relish some time with the wild.
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According to records from the Ghana Tourist Board, the park situated in the northern part of Damongo in the Northern Region boasts about 740 different species of plants.
It also has 93 species of mammals, including elephants, buffaloes, lions, leopard and kob, a type of antelopes.
In the 4,840 sq km park are also over 344 species of birds and about 33 species of reptiles.
The Mole Game Reserve is Ghana's largest national park but the inconvenience of travelling back and forth on the once poor road condition from Fufulso to Sawla and to Mole caused many to postpone a trip to the pristine guinea savannah woodland area.
Fortunately, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has come to the rescue and funded the Fufulso to Sawla road project, which is opening up that part of the country to the rest of the world.
The project
The outgoing Minister for Roads and Highways, Alhaji Sulemani, recently visited the park during a three-day road inspection tour of the Brong Ahafo, Northern and Upper West regions .
The 147.5km project is being executed by Messrs China International Water and Electric Corporation (CWE) at a cost of GH¢74 million.
A consultant representing Messrs Intercontinental Consultants and Technocrats Pvt. Limited of India, who briefed the minister on the progress of work, said operations were going on as planned and according to schedule.
At the time of the visit, Messrs CWE had cleared the entire stretch of road and had applied primer seal on 52.2 km out of the full 147.5km of road.
The road construction works were awarded by the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) and begun on January 3, 2012.
Progress
So far, Messrs CWE has achieved 85.64 per cent of work rate as against the scheduled 87.71 per cent. It has up to April 30, 2015 to complete the works and hand over to the government.
The Northern Regional Director for GHA, Mr Kwame Korankye-Adjei, indicated that the contractor was on course to deliver the project on time.
Minister's reaction
Alhaji Sulemani commended the contractors for the quality of work done. He expressed the hope that on completion, the road would help to improve the socio-economic well-being of the people in that part of the country.
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