Defence Minister Kenneth Gilbert Adjei has announced the completion of right-of-way clearing along the Accra-Kumasi Expressway corridor, confirming that Ghana Armed Forces engineers cleared all 175.6 kilometres in 19 weeks, a week ahead of the original 20-week target.
The announcement marks the formal conclusion of a military engineering operation President Mahama assigned to the Armed Forces in April 2026, closing out a mission that has drawn sustained public attention as it progressed from roughly a third complete in July to full completion by early September.
Hon Adjei opened his statement with unambiguous confidence in the outcome. “Mission accomplished,” he said. “We are pleased to announce that 175.6km of right-of-way has been cleared on the Accra-Kumasi Expressway in just 19 weeks, against an estimated 20 weeks.”
He framed the completion as a direct step toward the next phase of the project. “This significant milestone brings us one step closer to the commencement of construction works on the Accra-Kumasi Expressway,” he said. “With the preparatory works progressing ahead of schedule, the vision of a modern, efficient and safer expressway is taking shape.”
Credit Across Three Institutions
Hon Adjei’s statement extended recognition beyond the Ghana Armed Forces engineering teams who carried out the physical clearing work, naming two other ministers whose portfolios intersected with the project’s progress.
He commended Finance Minister Dr Cassiel Ato Forson and Roads and Highways Minister Kwame Governs Agbodza alongside the military teams, crediting all three for their commitment, dedication and teamwork in driving the project forward.
That joint recognition reflects how closely the expressway’s preparatory phase has depended on coordination across government.
While the Armed Forces handled the physical clearing of the 120-metre-wide corridor, Forson’s ministry has worked in parallel to secure the project’s financing, having announced days earlier that full funding for the expressway would be ready by the end of 2026 without any borrowing.
Hon Kwame Agbodza’s ministry, meanwhile, oversees the roads sector into which the expressway project falls, managing the broader Big Push infrastructure programme under which the corridor sits.
A Rapid Final Push
The clearing operation accelerated sharply in its final stretch. As of June 25, 2026, only about 89.5 kilometres, roughly half the route, had been cleared. By July, that figure had risen to 108 kilometres, or 61 percent of the corridor.
Progress then surged further, reaching 156 kilometres, 89 percent complete, within days, before the Armed Forces confirmed on August 31 that just six kilometres remained. Hon Adjei’s announcement now confirms that the remaining stretch has been finished, closing the gap entirely.
The Ghana Armed Forces deployed four combat work gangs simultaneously across the corridor during the operation, working day and night through torrential rain and dense forest canopy, while engaging directly with traditional authorities and landowners along the route to manage the corridor’s passage through ancestral lands and farming communities.
With the right-of-way now fully cleared, the project moves toward feasibility studies, detailed engineering designs and eventual contractor selection for the main construction contract, a process government officials have previously indicated could begin as early as September 2026.
Dr Ato Forson has announced that full funding for the Accra-Kumasi Expressway will be secured by the end of 2026 without any borrowing, with an initial $1.7 billion already deposited into a dedicated account at the Bank of Ghana.
Combined with continued petroleum and mineral royalty revenue, positions the government to fund the estimated $4 billion project entirely through domestic resources across 2025, 2026 and 2027.
Once completed, the six-lane expressway is expected to cut travel time between Accra and Kumasi to roughly two hours, down from the multi-hour journey currently required along the congested existing route, while easing the movement of goods and people along one of West Africa’s most economically significant transport corridors.
A Message of Continued Momentum
Hon Adjei closed his statement by tying the completed clearing work to the project’s broader ambitions for the corridor. “We are one step closer to transforming the Accra-Kumasi corridor,” he said, a line that positioned Saturday’s announcement not as an end point but as one milestone within a longer transformation government officials have described as among the most significant infrastructure undertakings in Ghana’s history.
With clearing now complete and financing arrangements advancing in parallel, attention turns to how quickly the project can move from preparatory groundwork into the construction phase that will ultimately determine when Ghanaian motorists see the benefits of the new expressway.
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