Over the past two to three decades, road networks in most african countries have expanded more extensively than the respective maintenance budgets and institutional capacities. Consequently, the levelof maintenance of the roads has been low. During the same period, there was excessive overloading of the road pavements with axle loadsfar above pavement design capacities. As a result, large sections of the networks deteriorated rapidly. The experience in ghana is similar to, or worse than, that of many other african countries. By the beginning of 1988, 30% of the trunk (main) roads were in good condition, with 30% in fair condition, and 40% in poor condition. Expenditure on road maintenance, though substantial relative to the overall national budget, was nevertheless not yielding expected returns. Something had to be done quickly to arrest the situation and save the road network and the economy from imminent collapse. It was postulated that to minimize total transport costs, including expenditures to rehabilitate the roads, a condition mix for the network, as a whole, of 70% good, 20% fair, and 10% poor would be optimal. Taking into consideration budgetary constraints, a practical program for clearingmaintenance backlog and stabilizing the network at the optimal condition mix was drawn up for execution in 7 years. The annual budget required to execute the program was found to be two to three times that of the budget at that time. In addition to the introduction by the government of ghana of the road fund to increase the road maintenance budget, assistance was sought from the world bank for the execution of the program. Individual road sections to be rehabilitated under the program were selected through engineering and economic studies conducted by local consultants in association with some foreign consultants. Work is being executed through local and international competitive bidding. In spite of initial delay in the start-up of the program, the project is proving to be highly successful. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1291, Fifth international conference on low-volume roads, may 19-23, 1991, raleigh, north carolina, volume 1.
Abstract