Regional News of Sunday, 16 December 2007

Source: GNA

Chainsaw operators use bad roads to destroy forests near Adumasa

Suhum (E/R), Dec. 16, GNA - Chainsaw operators have reportedly taken advantage of the bad nature of a five-kilometre feeder road from Tetteh Nkwanta through Ayitey to Adumasa to destroy the forests in the area.

Baffour Kwaku Addo, Odikro of Adumasa, who made this known to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) during a communal labour organized to weed the surroundings of the road said several appeals to the District Assembly and the government to rehabilitate the road had not received any response.

According to Baffour Addo, the road was constructed in 1985 by one Mr Hafter, a German, whose in-laws lived at Adumasa and that Mr Hafter constructed five bridges and eight coverts on the road single-handed. "Since then no rehabilitation work has been done on the road by the government despite several appeals", he said

Baffour Addo said at the moment the road was un-motorable and that no vehicle could ply the road, "as a result, chain saw operators have taken advantage of the bad nature of the road to destroy the forests". He said: "At the moment sick persons are carried in wheel barrows to nearby village at Ayitey before they could board vehicles to Suhum or Koforidua for medical treatment and that the youth who are mostly farmers were fast leaving the area to the urban areas relegating farming activities to the background".