Mmereponso-Ati (E/R), Aug 9, GNA - The people of Mmereponso-Ati, a farming community in the Kwaebibirem District, are appealing to the government and the district assembly to provide a bridge over River Mmereponso to enable them to cart farm produce to marketing centres. Floods have washed away a footbridge, thus cutting them off from the rest of the country.

Newsmen learning of their plight tried to reach the village but they could not.

They interviewed the chief and some representatives of the people standing on one bank of the river. Journalists shouted questions at them and they shouted back their answers from the other bank.

The Chief of Mmereponso-Ati, Bafour Adu Obeng, said it was impossible to get any farm produce across the river or procure any need from outside.

"There is no free movement of goods and people", he said. He said pupils of the only school in the village, the Mmereponso-Ati L/A school who lived in nearby villages across the river, could not attend classes so also were most of the teachers who lived in nearby towns.

The farmers produce large quantities of maize, plantain and cocoyam in addition to cocoa but it is impossible to send them to markets.

He pointed to oil palm seedlings that had been brought in from Okyinso for planting under the President's Special Initiative on Oil Palm but have been deposited on the bank of the river as a result of the situation.

Bafour Adu Obeng said their biggest problem was how to reach a medical facility when the need arose. "As I speak to you, two people in the village need urgent medical attention".

Mr Maxwell Oten, a Marketing Clerk of the Produce Buying Company, said since the collapse of the bridge, porters had to carry cocoa bags across the river.

He said PBC bought about 1,600 bags of cocoa a season and that there were three other cocoa buying companies operating in the area.