Between 2020 and 2021, the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) spent $15.8 million on a Streetlighting Replacement Project that was supposed to illuminate the roads, highways and streets of the national capital, Accra.

Despite the expenditure of millions of US dollars, most of the streets, roads and highways in the national capital remain dark at night, endangering the lives of motorists and pedestrians.
In response to a Right to Information request by The Fourth Estate, MiDA said the project was to cover a total of 523.46 kilometres spanning 20 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) in the Greater Accra region.

MiDA’s response indicated that “The Project involved the replacement of High Pressure Sodium and Mercury lamps with highly efficient LED on selected Streets in Accra, thereby reducing energy consumption on the Electricity Company of Ghana’s (ECG) network and also improving illumination on the selected Streets.” It added that “in all,14,969 luminaires were installed”.

In addition, in 2022, the Ministry of Energy took a little over GHS3.3 million from Ghana’s oil revenue to pay Prefos Limited, an electrical company, for the provision of streetlighting infrastructure (the light poles, electrical cables and light fixtures) on the Accra-Tema Motorway, according to the 2022 Public Interest and Accountability Committee annual report. Yet, anyone who drives on the motorway at night will testify to the darkness that pervades Ghana’s most popular highways because of the absence of streetlights. For three nights, from October 27 to 29, 2023 and 2024, The Fourth Estate visited several major roads and streets in 13 MMDAs in which MiDA implemented its Streetlighting Replacement Project.

The Fourth Estate team drove on the George Walker Bush Highway, the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange, the Liberation Road, the Accra-Tema Motorway, and the Black Star Square among many others. The team found that although there were street light poles on most of these streets, most of them delivered no lighting.

MiDA and the Ministry of Roads and Highways did not respond to questions The Fourth Estate sent them about the Streetlighting Replacement Project.

The Fourth Estate spoke to several motorists and residents in Accra, who confirmed that the lack of functioning streetlights on many roads in the city endangered their lives and those of pedestrians.

Edward Kyei-Baffour, a driver with an online ride hailing platform, often works at night. He tells The Fourth Estate that because of poor visibility, drivers often knock down pedestrians at night.

“When you reach a location where streetlights don’t work and the pedestrian is not wearing a reflective cloth, you will accidentally knock them down,” he says. He believes that poor visibility is a major cause of frequent knockdowns at night.

“Recently, at Akweteyman, a colleague driver knocked down two ladies around 9pm,” he said. “They were on the N1 Highway. Because of lack of visibility, and the fact that the stretch is also dark, and the clothes of the ladies were not reflective, mistakenly, he knocked them down.”

Kyei-Baffour says the dimly lit roads force most drivers to always turn on their headlights. But because some cars have stronger headlights than others, they blind other drivers on the road, causing havoc.

Michael Kwaku Agamah, another driver with an online ride hailing platform, told The Fourth Estate that he took the advice of a mechanic who told him to buy a stronger headlight to improve his visibility while driving at night. “My headlight is 100 watts. Before, it was 70 watts,” he says. “Somebody who does not have 100 watts but has 70 watts will crash in potholes and will burst his tyre.”

Mr Agamah lamented that when drivers get caught up in traffic in areas where there are no streetlights, they are often attacked by armed robbers.

That was the fate of Sophia Odoley Sagoe. On July 29, 2024, she was accosted by two men while walking home from work on the Teshie Link Road. She says the men left her stranded after they forcibly took her phone and bag.

“The place was very quiet and dark. If there was light on that stretch, I don’t think they could have done what they did,” she says.

In an interview with The Fourth Estate, the Director-General of the National Road Safety Authority, David Osafo Adonteng, said street lighting should be a basic necessity for motorists and residents in Accra. “Night crashes happen to be very significant in our road crashes,” he says. “If you go on the N1, between Tetteh Quarshie and Lapaz, people are driving into disabled vehicles because they are unable to see ahead of them.”

According to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s Road Safety Reports (2019 to 2022), the pattern of crashes in the city shows that more people are killed following crashes that occur between 6pm and 10pm.

“This pattern can partially be explained by poor visibility and high vehicular speeds at that time of day,” the 2022 report noted.

Poor leadership is to blame

According to Mr Adonten, the cause of the perennial challenges with streetlighting in Accra stems from a lack of leadership by the Ministry of Energy. He said the ministry has some responsibility in providing and maintaining streetlights. He said a recent stakeholder engagement organised by the NRSA showed that the “Ministry of Energy appears not to be on top of the situation.”

He also pointed out that the institutions responsible for ensuring the city is well-illuminated are not collaborating.

“They are not coordinating and so responsibility has become very difficult as to who is responsible exactly within the space where we are to provide streetlights,” Mr Adonteng says.

The Fourth Estate wrote to the Ministry of Energy for comment. Although the ministry responded that it would respond in “due time,” it is yet to do so – more than six weeks after our request.

According to LI 1961, the MMDAs are to collaborate with the ECG to ensure the provision of streetlights. But a 2011 draft policy on streetlighting by the Ministry of Energy underscores that the MMDAs “lack the financial and technical resources to provide and maintain the service”.

MiDA’s Streetlighting Project was to fill this gap and ensure that the streets and roads in the capital are illuminated at night. But the lack of maintenance appears to be the major reason why many parts of the city remain dark.

“As to who maintains [streetlights, it has] become a big question for all of us,” Mr Adonten told The Fourth Estate. “For example, if you go on the Accra-Tema Motorway, you would find the installation done but within a few years, then some are broken, some of the lights are not working and some cables have been stolen. And so, it renders the entire stretch of the motorway so dark.”

When The Fourth Estate drove on the Accra-Tema Motorway on Monday, October 28, 2024, there was not a single functioning streetlight on the stretch. And the people crossing the highway were nearly invisible.

The Managing Director of Prefos Limited, the company the Ministry of Energy paid over three million cedis to for the provision of streetlight infrastructure on the Accra-Tema Motorway, declined to respond to questions by The Fourth Estate.

“We are not obliged to do any interview with any media house,” the Prefos MD, Wendy Agyeman said. “We work with the ministry. If you need any information, you can go to the ministry.”

Decentralise streetlight administration

Mr Adonten says the best way forward is for the government to resource the MMDAs to provide and maintain streetlights in the country.

“It will help the communities. If the capacity is not there, it’s a matter of us building their capacities,” he said.

The Estate Officer of the Adenta Municipal Assembly, Raymond Aboagye, affirmed that the assemblies lack the resources and expertise to adequately provide and maintain streetlights. He said the assembly struggles to maintain streetlights mounted on metallic poles. Unlike the wooden poles that the assembly’s electrician can climb, he said they lack the equipment to repair those on metallic poles.

“They use cranes to repair them, and the assembly doesn’t have a crane,” he said. “So, we have to get a crane from a private company like Prefos. We have a lot of [the metalic poles] in this area. And it’s expensive to repair them.”

Although he admitted that the assemblies should visit the communities often to ascertain the state of the streetlights, he said this is nearly impossible as he is the only person at the assembly in charge of maintaining streetlights.

“Adenta is a very big community and I’m the Estate Officer, just one person. I would not be able to identify all the areas that is dark,” he said.

Mr Aboagye claimed he collaborates well with the assembly members to keep the streetlights on. But the Assemblyman for the Ogbojo Electoral Area, Elvis Ofosu Mensah said there is a big challenge with the maintenance of streetlights.

“I can take you to my electoral area where streetlights are still hanging there. They don’t need to be changed; they just need to be maintained,” Mr Mensah says. “But where do you get the funds to maintain them?”

The Director of Safety Campaign Ghana, Damoah Emmanuel Nyarkoh, told The Fourth Estate that budget constraints and a lack of routine maintenance have resulted in the vast stretches of poorly lit streets and highways in Accra.

“Theft of cables and light fixtures have significantly affected the functionality of streetlights,” he said. “Poorly lit areas are breeding grounds for criminal activities, including thefts and assaults. Residents and commuters feel unsafe, which affects their overall well-being and restricts nighttime mobility.”

Mr Damoah emphasised the need for year-round maintenance, engaging local communities to report non-functioning streetlights and the installation of surveillance cameras to deter vandalism and theft of streetlight infrastructure. He recommended that there should be stricter penalties for individuals who steal streetlight infrastructure.

Mr Adonteng of the NRSA said it’s disappointing that Ghana is struggling to maintain streetlights six decades after independence.

“More than 60 years after independence, we are unable to light our cities,” he says. “I think it is not the best and we should make a conscious effort to get there.”