The Accra–Kumasi Expressway is being promoted as more than a road. The government says the project will shorten journeys, reduce transport costs, stimulate commercial activity and create more than 30,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction.
Is that employment claim realistic?
The honest answer is that 30,000 jobs is possible. But without a published project budget, labour plan and employment-impact assessment, it cannot yet be presented as a verified outcome—or as a conservative minimum.
Economist and Energy Analyst, Dr Theo Acheampong has attempted to demonstrate how the figure could be reached. His calculation provides a useful framework for understanding infrastructure employment, but it also exposes the information the government must publish before the claim can be independently tested.
What the government has promised
Ghana’s 2026 Budget Statement describes the project as a 198.7-kilometre, six-lane, bidirectional Class A expressway on a new alignment.
According to the government, it will reduce the existing Accra–Kumasi journey by more than 50 kilometres, halve travel time and cut transport costs by nearly 40%. It is expected to include major interchanges, bridges, service areas and automated toll plazas.
The same budget projects more than 30,000 direct and indirect jobs during construction. It does not, however, explain whether those jobs mean individual workers, positions at a particular point in time, full-time equivalents or job-years.
That distinction is crucial.
A job-year represents one person employed full-time for one year. Two people working for six months each would collectively equal one job-year. Infrastructure assessments often use this measure because construction employment is temporary and changes as a project moves from earthworks to drainage, bridges, paving and finishing.
But governments and political communicators frequently use “jobs” to mean the number of individuals who may work on a project at any point. Thirty thousand workers and 30,000 job-years are not necessarily the same thing.
How the 30,000 figure might be reached
Dr. Acheampong estimates that approximately 10% of the expressway’s expenditure could go directly to on-site labour, including equipment operators, artisans, engineers, supervisors and general workers.
Using an assumed labour envelope of between US$400 million and US$500 million, and an average annual employment cost of approximately US$10,000 per worker, he estimates between 38,000 and 48,000 direct job-years.
He then adds between 12,000 and 14,000 indirect job-years from local purchases involving quarries, cement producers, transporters, caterers and other suppliers. This produces a central estimate of about 50,000 job-years, with a wider possible range of 38,000 to 70,000.
The arithmetic works—but only if the assumptions do.
A US$400 million labour bill representing 10% of expenditure implies a project cost of roughly US$4 billion. A US$500 million labour bill implies US$5 billion. The government’s published budget does not provide that final project price.
The 2026 Mid-Year Fiscal Policy Review reported that US$1.7 billion had been deposited into a dedicated Accra–Kumasi Expressway account as of 22 July 2026. That amount does not necessarily represent the complete project cost, but it shows why the expenditure baseline must be disclosed.
If the final construction cost is materially below US$4 billion, the labour allocation and resulting direct-job estimate would also fall unless labour represents a substantially larger share of expenditure.
Plausible is not the same as verified
Acheampong’s broader point is sound: major infrastructure investments create employment beyond the construction site.
Research on Ghana’s construction industry has found important links between construction, manufacturing, transport, trade and other economic activities. The sector can therefore generate direct, indirect and induced employment. The UNU-WIDER study on Ghana’s construction sector also highlights its economic importance and employment potential.
However, general construction-sector research cannot determine the exact number of jobs generated by this particular expressway.
The result will depend on its engineering design, construction technology, wage structure, import content and procurement rules. A contractor relying heavily on imported machinery, steel, bitumen, and prefabricated components will create fewer Ghanaian jobs than one that sources more materials and services locally.
The indirect calculation requires particular caution. Ghana’s 2019 Social Accounting Matrix can help estimate how expenditure moves between industries, but a project-specific model would still need to identify what will be bought in Ghana, from which sectors and at what value.
It is also too early to conclude that 30,000 is the “floor”. The lower bound could fall below that figure if the project costs less than assumed, uses capital-intensive construction methods or imports a high proportion of its inputs.
How government can make the promise measurable
The government can strengthen the credibility of the claim by publishing:
- The project’s final cost and bill of quantities.
- A definition of what counts as a direct or indirect job.
- The projected number of job-years and unique workers.
- Labour-cost and wage assumptions.
- Local-content targets for materials and services.
- Contractor payroll data, disaggregated by occupation, gender and district.
- Apprenticeship targets linked to Ghanaian TVET institutions.
- Independent quarterly employment audits.
These measures would also help prevent double counting, such as treating an existing quarry or haulage worker as a newly created job when the project merely redirects work from another contract.
The expressway can undoubtedly support thousands of workers and businesses. Its longer-term benefits could be even more important if improved transport attracts factories, warehouses, logistics centres and agricultural processing facilities along the corridor.
But those lasting jobs should be assessed separately from temporary construction employment.
Thirty thousand jobs is a credible policy target. It is not yet an independently demonstrated fact. The strongest way for the government to defend the number is not through another graphic or political statement, but through transparent contracts, local procurement commitments, and payroll-verified reporting.
The employment calculation discussed in this article is credited to Dr. Theo Acheampong. Project information and the 30,000-job projection are credited to Ghana’s Ministry of Finance.
