Correspondence from Bono Region:

Commercial taxi drivers who ply the Sunyani-Kumasi highway in the Bono Region have served notice of embarking on an industrial strike.

The decision stems from what they described as increased vehicular traffic on the main road due to the 'unnecessary' number of rumble strips at the CASBE International School.

The drivers attribute the cause of this needless traffic to the construction of raised rumble strips in front of CASBE International School which is sited between Tyco Hotel and St James Seminary Senior High School on the Abesim road.

The group of taxi drivers were led by one Kobby to present their letter of notice for a peaceful demonstration on Wednesday, January 27, 2021, to the police in the Sunyani Municipality.

The drivers indicated though they have petitioned the Sunyani Municipal Assembly a number of times to remove the series of constructed rumble strips on the road, the assembly has not done anything about their petition.

The drivers who spoke to GhanaWeb bemoaned that they have to be in long vehicular traffic for an hour every day to get to town; adding that, this greatly affects their fuel consumption every day.

Mr Amoah, a resident of Abesim told GhanaWeb the traffic mostly starts at 6:20 am every weekday and reaches its peak from 7:00 am to 9:45 am.

He added that this same long traffic reoccurs in the late afternoon between 3:00 pm and 8:00 pm. He, therefore, appealed to the assembly to listen to their plight and come to their aid.

People who are most affected are government workers, students, and traders, who reside at Abesim and work in Sunyani.

They are faced with the challenge of getting taxes in the morning to convey them to the district business centre to carry out their duties.

This problem worsens in the evening as one will have to pay more for the fare to Abesim or risk being in town for hours without any driver showing up to take them to Abesim.

Market women who stay at Abesim but trade at the Nana Bosoma Market have to wake up as early as 4:00 am to save themselves from the long traffic if they want to make good sales in the morning at the market.

Ghanaweb Regional Correspondent in an interview with the Regional Highway Director, Frederick Adu Agyei, stated that the stretch of road in question was not under his supervision but rather falls under that of the Municipal Works Department of the assembly.

A member of the works committee at the assembly who spoke off-camera said that his committee has received a petition from the drivers and that the committee is working on it to find a solution to it.

The immediate past engineer of the assembly, Engineer Kwame Frimpong called for dualisation of the road as a permanent solution to vehicular traffic.

In the medium term, Mr Kwame Frimpong admonished the owners of CASBE International School to get a grader to work on an abandoned road which is behind the school so that parents can use that road as an alternative to reduce traffic.

Abesim is one of the most populated towns in Sunyani East Constituency and is located along the main Sunyani - Kumasi Road.

Ordinarily, it is a 10-minute drive from Sunyani to Abesim. Abesim is known for its river, the Tano River that supplies water to Sunyani and its environs, sections of the Bono Region, and part of the Ahafo Region