General News of Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Source: Today Newspaper

Killer road at Ashaley Botwe as residents threaten to block it if…

Scores of residents in Ashaley Botwe, a suburb of Accra in the Adentan Municipality, have registered their disquiet about the precarious nature of their roads.

A visit by Today to the area at the weekend showed that the road from Third Gate Down to Ogbojo Market in Asaley Botwe had caved in as a result of erosion and was posing grave danger to both motorists and commuters.

The situation, Today observed, had been compounded by the fact that a bridge constructed on the road was gradually also being seriously affected by erosion.

Our team also discovered that both ends of the bridge which had no concrete reinforced columns had also caved in and eating its way to the road proper.

In an interview with Today, a resident of the area, Kwabena Kena, hinted that residents in the area were planning to block the road from being used, if nothing was done to rehabilitate it.

He warned that if government does not do something about the road, the residents would use all means at their disposal to prevent motorists from plying it.

The visibly angry Kwabena Kena recounted that three fatal accidents so far had occurred on the road since it started deteriorating.

“If we do not draw the government’s attention to the precarious state of our road, we will continue to lose precious lives in the area,” he warned.

He was particularly worried about the posture of government appointees, especially the Assembly man for the area, Jacob Mensah Adjetey.

Reports suggest that Mr. Mensah Adjetey on an inspection of the road last year [2014] promised to fix it.

“…and till date Mr. Mensah Adjetey has not done anything about the situation,” Kwabena Kena indicated.

According to him, though assembly men or members of Parliament (MPs) do not construct roads, they can use their positions to lobby for roads of such nature to be fixed.

“I want to put on records that the Adentan Municipal Assembly was very much aware of the situation, yet it had done nothing about it,” he intimated.

Some commercial drivers who also spoke to Today on condition of anonymity called on the central government to take urgent steps to fix the road.

“In fact, the earlier the NDC government does something about this situation the better for all of us or else…” the worried drivers expressed.

Their contention was that the situation if not addressed quickly could force them (drivers) out of business as their vehicles were frequently breaking down as a result of the road.