Ghana Spent $151 Million on Buses That Never Left the Park | Why everyone is still in Traffic

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[00:00:00]It's another work morning or probably an important errand that you might have to work on. [music] Your alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. Not because you wanted to, because if you leave any later, you won't make it [music] to work by 8:00.

[00:00:11]Accra to Accra, Pokuase to Accra, Tema to Accra, and Danta to Accra. Every morning, >> [music] >> same road, same car, same jam. And every few years, a government comes along, buys some buses, cuts a ribbon, and the traffic is still there. Since Ghana's Fourth Republic began in 1993, [music] every single administration has bought buses. Some bought 100, some bought thousands. They all promised trains.

[00:00:37]None of them fixed the morning commute.

[00:00:39]This is the story of Ghana's buses, Ghana's broken road promises, and the morning commutes that never got better.

[00:00:47]Today, we're asking a question that every Ghanaian [music] who has ever sat in traffic has probably thought about, but never got a straight answer to. Why, after 30 years and 16 bus programs, are we still in this [music] traffic jam?

[00:01:01]Let's get into it. I'm Jacqueline Andam-Mireku, and this is Joy News Explains.

[00:01:06]Before we get into the buses, before we get into the promises, let's talk about what's actually happening on our roads, because this isn't just a transport story. It's an economy story. It's a health story. It's a time story. Now, the average Ghanaian commuter in Accra spends between two and four hours a day in traffic. That's not just inconvenient. That's time away from your family. That's fuel money you didn't budget for. That's stress your body is absorbing every single morning and evening.

[00:01:36]And here's the thing. Roughly 95% of Ghanaians who use public transport rely on tro-tros, not buses, not trains, tro-tros. The same informal mini buses that have been the backbone of the city since the government walked away from the public transport in 1990s. So, how did we get here? I asked Anthony from our research desk to take us right back to the beginning.

[00:02:00]>> So, here is the thing most people don't know. Ghana's fourth republic actually started with government leaving public transport and not joining it. Under Rawlings in the 1990s, as part of a structural adjustment, the Omnibus Service Authority was divested. The State Transport Corporation divested, City Express Services also divested.

[00:02:23]The government basically said we are out of the bus business. And into that vacuum, the tro-tros came in.

[00:02:30]By the late 1990s, tro-tros were carrying about 95% of all public transport in Ghana.

[00:02:37]That [snorts] was not an accident. That was a policy decision.

[00:02:40]Then came Kufuor in 2001. And on inauguration day, literally his first speech, he called for mass transit to come back.

[00:02:50]And he meant it, at least in the beginning.

[00:02:52]Within two years, Ghana had a new entity, Metro Mass Transit, MMT. And the buses started coming.

[00:03:00]>> 16 major bus procurement programs, 30 years, five presidents so far. Now, let me walk you through this because the pattern is something else. During President Kufuor's era, which is between 2001 to 2008, it was the biggest bus boom in Ghana that we had ever seen.

[00:03:17]Italian buses, Dutch buses, Chinese buses, Belgian buses, Indian school buses. Six distinct programs in eight years. At one point, the Metro Mass Transit had over 1,000 buses on Ghanaian roads. 1,000. Today, Metro Mass Transit operates roughly 400 buses. 1,000 became 400. Not because nobody bought more buses, but because they kept buying more buses, and the buses kept breaking down, and there was nobody to fix them. Then came the program that, honestly, makes me shake my head every time. The Aayalolo Bus Rapid Transit System.

[00:03:53]Ghana's big flagship project backed by the World Bank, the French Development Agency, the Global Environment Facility.

[00:04:00]245 Scania buses from Sweden. Each bus cost 251,000 US dollars.

[00:04:09]For I mean, the total project was 151 million US dollars. And the World Bank, the people giving the money, had recommended about 80 buses. Ghana procured three times that. Before the dedicated lanes were even finished, within two years of launch, 197 of the 245 buses had reportedly never been deployed. Many are still grounded today.

[00:04:36]151 million dollars, most of it parked.

[00:04:41]>> So, here's what the research consistently shows, and this is the part that actually important.

[00:04:46]The problem was never the buses.

[00:04:48]Think about it like this. You buy a new car, brand new, beautiful, but you have no mechanic, no spare parts, no garage, and the roads you drive on you share with everyone else, who is also ignoring lanes. How long before the car breaks down and stays broken?

[00:05:08]That's exactly what happened. Every administration bought buses. Almost none of them built the maintenance workshops.

[00:05:16]Almost none enforced dedicated lanes.

[00:05:18]None of them tackled road regulation, which means trotros and buses compete on the same roads for the same passengers with no framework separating them. And here is the most damning pattern.

[00:05:30]The same Belgian Concessionary Loan Line that financed buses under Kufuor in 2003 is still active right now, financing buses under Mahama in 2026.

[00:05:42]Same loan, same supply relationship, 23 years later. We keep going back to the same financier, getting the same buses, and wondering why we get the same results.

[00:05:54]>> Now, the trains, because every time a government bought buses, they also promised trains, every single one of them. Let me show you what that looks like on a single timeline.

[00:06:12]Let's talk about the SkyTrain, because this one deserves its own very moment.

[00:06:17]In 2018, Ghana signed a deal with a South African consortium for a 2.6 billion dollar SkyTrain over Accra, 2.6 billion US dollars. The Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund paid 2 million dollars to acquire shares in a Mauritius-based special purpose vehicle setup for this project. The Auditor General called that transaction a net liability. No physical work ever started. The project was formally abandoned. Some former officials now face prosecution on that very project. 2 million dollars for shares in a company in Mauritius for a train that was never built. Then there's the Tema-Akosombo train. This one is actually different.

[00:06:58]That's Ghana's first ever standard gauge railway, 97 kilometers funded by nearly 700 million dollars from India's Export and Import Bank. Inaugurated in November 2024. And that was actually a genuine milestone. Except as of last year, the line was sitting idle, cable stolen, vandalism, and no operational framework to run services. Ghana built its first ever standard gauge railway and couldn't operate it. By the latter part of 2025, operations began.

[00:07:28]>> There are three patterns in 30 years of this data that nobody in power wants to say out loud. But the research says them clearly. Pattern one, buses are a substitute for rail, not a bridge to it.

[00:07:42]Every administration has promised rail and delivered buses instead. Because buses are visible. You can commission them in three months. You put them You can put your name on the side. Rail takes a decade and most government don't last long enough to open a line.

[00:07:58]So, we get buses. And the rail promise moves to the next administration.

[00:08:04]Part in two, who finances the buses decides which bus you get.

[00:08:10]Dutch money, DAF buses. Belgian money, VDL buses. Swedish money, Scania buses.

[00:08:18]Chinese money, Yutong, Yaxing, Ankai buses. Indian money, Afcons built your railway.

[00:08:26]Ghana has almost never chosen a bus based on what suits Ghanaian routes. We choose based on who is lending us the money.

[00:08:35]And part in three, the most important one, the problem has never been the buses. Ghana has procured thousands of buses in 30 years. MMT had over a thousand buses at its peak. Today, it runs 400. The buses didn't disappear.

[00:08:54]They broke down. And they stayed broken because there are no workshops, no spare parts pipelines, no route regulations, and no enforcement of dedicated lanes.

[00:09:06]You can keep buying buses forever. If you don't fix the system around them, you will keep getting the same results.

[00:09:13]>> So, what's happening right now? The Mahama administration second term came in with a reset agenda. And for the first time in 30 years, there's something structurally different about how buses are being financed. A hundred buses commissioned early in 2026, 250 to 300 more for STC financed through Ghana Commercial Bank, which is domestic money, not donor money. And for the first time in the fourth republic, Ghana is buying buses with its own financing.

[00:09:44]Hmm.

[00:09:45]Whether that changes the outcome depends entirely on whether the system changes alongside the buses because there's also a 10 billion dollar big push infrastructure plan announced in 2025.

[00:09:58]And guess what? Rail is in it. The 24-hour economic strategy references rail extension to Burkina Faso, the Tema. The Padang sat idle for months after inauguration. Not because the track was bad, because the operational framework wasn't ready at that time. One corridor running isn't the finish line.

[00:10:15]It's proof of concept. The question now is whether Ghana can scale that proof across the whole system. Now, back to Monday morning. You're on that road, Kasoa, Pokuase, Tema, Adenta. It's bumper to bumper. Before the sun is fully up, and maybe you've started to believe that this is just how it is, that Ghana is just a traffic country.

[00:10:35]But it isn't. It's a country that has spent 30 years buying buses and promising trains without building a system that makes either one work. But we know Ghana has proven it can build.

[00:10:46]Yes, the Tema and Padang line is proof.

[00:10:49]Eight months running, Ghana's first standard gauge railway. But one line, seven, one corridor doesn't fix the morning commute from Kasoa or Pokuase or Adenta. 16 bus programs, 30 years, five presidents. And the question that will define the next 30 years is whether Ghana can definitely or finally build a system around infrastructure. Not just the track, not just the buses, the workshops, the lanes, the regulation, the political will to see it through past the ribbon cutting. Because Ghana has proven it can build. The question now is whether we can run what we build, all of it, for all of us.

[00:11:34]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Mhm.