Correspondence from Eastern Region:

Tuesday’s gory accident which claimed 13 lives on the spot at Kyekyewere near Suhum in the Eastern Region is an indication that successive governments have failed the people of Ghana as far as the Accra-Kumasi highway is concerned, Eastern Regional Director of the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), Abdulai Bawa Ghamsah, has asserted.

Speaking to Ghanaweb in an interview, the disturbed Road Safety Director expressed that for many years now dualization of the road had been neglected by governments and rendering the current single lane of the road highly unsafe for road users.

“…the road was started in President Kuffuor’s time to dualise; they could not finish it before leaving office. The next government …the NDC came for eight years, nothing or little was done on that road. The NPP government is back and they are four years..., the same story we are seeing on that road and still we are using single lanes.

“What most drivers do not know about the road is, the single lane that we have offloaded the traffic on, the road line markings and the road furniture there was not meant for a two-way lane.”

He said most drivers sometimes forget that the road is not a dual carriage “but a single lane that has got both lines on it and that is the cause of most of the accidents we are seeing.”

Mr. Ghamsah stated that that portion of the road had never been safe and that there was the need for appropriate authorities to make it safe for motorists that ply it.

“That portion of the road was not safe and they are not safe today. The reason is a single carriage highway in modern day Ghana can never be safe.

“It is now a ritual that every week there must be a blood shed on that road and as Ghanaians, as authorities and as people in leadership we continue to ply that road. There is no single leader in Ghana who will tell me that within a month he will not ply that road; (they) know exactly the dangers that road is posing to road users.

“…and some of them are even involved in accidents (on that road) and yet we do not see it to be our priority, Yet none of those leaders are seeing that road to be a number one priority when it comes to development.

“We are hearing a whole lot of manifestos. That of NPP has come, that of NDC has followed, did you hear any concrete statement about dualising the road from Accra to Kumasi? When I say a concrete statement, it is not just a statement in a political party manifesto but a statement that is backed by an identified source of funding with timelines as to how they are going to do it,” he expressed.

Mr. Ghamsah advised motorists to play their part by continuing to observe all the road safety regulations to keep themselves and their passengers safe.

Available reports indicate that the death toll from Tuesday’s fatal accident has since risen from 13 to 16 after three more persons were confirmed dead on Wednesday, September 16, 2020.

The gory accident occurred after a DAF truck carrying bags of flour burst tyres at Kyekyewere, veered off its lane, and crashed into two passenger buses heading towards Accra.

So far, over 50 of the injured victims have been treated and discharged while 21 others who sustained serious injuries are still receiving treatment at separate hospitals at Suhum, Nsawam, and Koforidua in the Eastern Region.