By Nelson Ayivor
Aflao (V/R), July. 29, GNA – Motorists and pedestrians who use the Komla Dumor road have appealed to the authorities to carry out repair works on the deteriorating road.
The feeder road, which led to the Aflao Senior High School and the palace of Torgbi Amenya Fiti V, Paramount Chief of the area was constructed and named after the late BBC broadcaster, Komla Dumor, who hailed from the area.
Since its construction some years back, the road had not seen any reshaping, making it unmotorable especially during the rainy season.
The road gets heavily flooded during severe downpours, cutting off communities like Agblekpui, Agblazume and others which are on the other side of the road.
Some residents of the affected communities have to resort to alternative routes to access the mainland, with others bracing the odds to walk through the floods to get to the town.
To verify the concerns being raised by the road users, the GNA took a walk to the area after a rainy day and saw pedestrians and motorists meandering their way through the floods to reach their various destinations.
Eyi Afadi and Etsa Afadi, twin sisters from Agblekpui, who sell at the Aflao market and use the road on a daily basis, took turns to pour out their frustrations to the GNA.
“As you can see for yourself the road is in a deplorable state. We use this road every day to get to the market where we sell to make a living – The road is on the lagoon and during the rainy season, this is what you see. The lagoon overflows onto the road and we have no option than to struggle through the water – we are begging the authorities to do something about the road. If some gutters can be constructed to at least divert the excess water back into the lagoon, that will help a lot,” the twin sisters lamented.
Mr Anthony Akpalu, a commercial motorcycle “okada” rider who plies the route said the bad nature of the road, coupled with the floods was taking a toll on their activities.
“The road is now very bad and really affecting our work. Customers don’t patronize our services like before – you carry someone and they are complaining of water splashing on their clothes – Some prefer to even walk through the water and others are also using alternative roads inaccessible to us – this is how we also get our daily bread so we are pleading with the Municipal Assembly to do something about this for us to continue to get our daily bread,” Akpalu said.
Ms Josephine Amegashie, a student of Aflao Senior High School who walks the road to school each day told the GNA that she and her other mates had to walk through the water with their sandals removed to get to school every day.
She added that the situation was contributing to absenteeism as some students preferred to stay at home when it rained instead of having to walk through the floods to get to school.
“Some of our mates have even stopped coming to school regularly as a result of the floods on the road – especially during rainy days, they don’t come at all,” she lamented.
Meanwhile, Mr Maxwell Kofi Lugudor, Municipal Chief Executive for Ketu South told the GNA that the attention of the assembly had been drawn to the situation and the concerns raised by the people.
He assured of the assembly’s commitment to ensuring that the problem was resolved soon.
GNA