Solomon Owusu Proposes Bypassing Multi-Million Dollar Tenders to Award Odaw Clean-Up Directly to Local Circle Boys | Discuss Ghana

The aggressive, often polarizing partisan debate surrounding the structural maintenance of Accra’s primary drainage networks has taken a highly unconventional tactical turn. Weighing in on the administrative and infrastructural bottlenecks exposed by Monday’s historic rainstorm, the Director of Communications for the United Party (UP), Solomon Owusu, has proposed a radical, bottom-up approach to civil engineering, claiming that a GH¢5 million ($330,000 equivalent) direct payout to the local youths of Kwame Nkrumah Circle ("Circle Boys") would yield far more efficient desilting results than multi-million dollar foreign corporate tenders.

The bold, highly provocative statement comes at a critical hour for the capital's crisis-response units. As military engineers from the 48 Engineer Regiment continue to operate heavy machinery across the clogged waterways of the Odawna basin using emergency state funds, Owusu used a high-vibe morning political show on Asempa FM to slam what he described as the over-bureaucratization of public works. He argued that utilizing domestic, highly motivated grassroots labor is the fastest way to clear the catastrophic blockages currently paralyzing the capital's central drainage systems.

The Architecture of the Informal Labor Proposal

The United Party's communications chief defended his alternative engineering thesis by challenging the fiscal transparency and speed of standard government procurement models:

Bypassing Corporate Bureaucracy: Owusu fiercely argued that the state has spent years hiding behind complex international frameworks, like the World Bank-backed Greater Accra Resilient and Integrated Development (GARID) project, while primary channels remain completely choked with silt and plastic waste. He maintained that a flat, uncompromised sum of GH¢5 million handed directly to organized local youth groups would see the entire Odawna stretch completely cleared within a fraction of the time used by heavy corporate contractors.

The Local Ownership Blueprint: The UP spokesperson emphasized that the "Circle Boys"—the informal network of youth, traders, and artisans operating around the commercial hub of the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange—possess an intimate, boots-on-the-ground understanding of the local terrain. By directly financing them, the state would simultaneously create immediate local employment while instilling a fierce culture of communal monitoring against illegal dumping:

"We have turned simple drainage desilting into a multi-million dollar avenue for corporate profiteering, and the results are completely zero. Look at the Odawna basin right now; it is entirely blocked by plastic and mud.

I am telling you today without any hesitation: if we give the local Circle Boys just GH¢5 million, they will enter that drain and completely dredge the Odawna channel with absolute speed and dedication. These are boys who live and work right in the belly of the enclave. They know exactly where the bottlenecks are, and they have the raw physical energy to clear them. Instead of waiting for massive foreign machines and signing delayed contracts that yield nothing but seasonal floods, let us empower our own local youth, give them the tools, pay them directly, and watch them deliver a clean, free-flowing drainage network."