Five communities in the Nadowli District of the Upper West Region have petitioned the government against its neglect to rehabilitate feeder roads leading to their communities.

The petitioners said during Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s administration there were feeder roads at Dambaa, Da/Tachiripie, Bamaaraa, Mwawaare and Piirun-yiri linking them to the Nadowli-Jirapa main road and Daffiama road.

However, over the past years there had not been any form of rehabilitation work done on these roads resulting in some of them being overgrown by bush, whilst others had become footpaths.

Consequently when bed-ridden patients were to be conveyed to the district hospitals at Nadowli and Jirapa it had to be done by head portage to either the Nadowli-Daffiama road or Nadowli-Jirapa road to wait for a vehicle to come around.

A statement issued and signed by 16 members of the communities including traditional rulers and opinion leaders, asked the government to also rehabilitate the dilapidated mud-walled school building they had constructed many years ago to make it decent for teachers and children.

They said teachers were unwilling to accept posting to the school and many of the children also preferrred to walk more than 10 miles in and out to other schools elsewhere at Nadowli, Kalbegra and Moryiri due to the poor conditions of the school building.

They said five communities were not benefiting from the rural electrification project going on in the district and did not also have health facility to cater for their health needs.

The chiefs and people of the five communities have therefore resolved that if nothing was done about electricity and the rehabilitation of the roads, as well as the provision of boreholes before the coming elections, they would not welcome any political party that would attempt to campaign in any of the communities.

“We shall also not tolerate any ballot boxes being sent to any of the polling stations in the electoral area for voting during the elections.

“Certainly, we shall not vote in the 2012 elections if nothing is done about our grievances”, the petitioners said.

The petitioners said they were non-partisan in making their request because rather than the National Democratic Congress (NDC) alone, past governments too had neglected the communities.