By Bajin D. Pobia
Wa, June 18, GNA – Naa Fuseini Seidu Pelpuo, the overlord of the Waala Traditional Council, has bemoaned the deplorable Wa-Bole-Bamboi Road saying “It is giving sleepless nights to drivers and passengers and killing patients on referrals to hospitals in Tamale and Kumasi”.
He said the condition of the road made it harder to be called a road again; only the drivers who have been driving on it could locate it.
“Drivers plying on it for the first time easily get missing and rather veered off into the bushes because the bush path and the road are identical in sight. Its dreadful condition makes it a nightmare in the true word”, the Wa-Naa lamented.
The Wa-Naa said this before the Road and Highways Minister, Mr Francis Asenso-Boakye, during a courtesy on him at his palace to start an inspection tour of the European Union and World Bank-funded feeder roads and other roads in the Upper West Region.
The Wa-Naa said hitherto, a journey of six hours from Wa-Kumasi had now become 15 15-hour journey by commercial vehicles and as a result, perishable goods transported from the southern sector got wasted because of the long hours spent on the road.
“A major worry to our people has to do with patients on referrals to Tamale and Kumasi Teaching Hospitals for specialists’ medical attention, as they get to their destinations declared dead on arrival”, the Wa-Naa said.
“It is that when patients are on referral to these hospitals, relatives start to prepare for their funerals because the roads will virtually kill them”, he added.
The Wa-Naa however commended the government for providing the region with two universities, which had developed excellent programmes to educate the teeming youth with skills to serve the manpower needs of the region in particular and Ghana as a whole.
He, however, expressed disappointment that the intake of students in the two universities had dwindled and attributed it to the poor road network, while government workers, especially some critical medical personnel were rejecting transfers to the region.
“Equally, businessmen and women have also found the region unattractive and are refusing to set up their enterprises due to the high cost of doing business regarding transportation and poor road network”, he stated.
Naa Pelpuo reminded Mr Asenso-Boakye of a promise made to the people of the region by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that he would fix the Wa-Bole-Bamboi Road and present it as a gift before the end of his tenure of office.
He said the people were hopeful to see the fulfilment of that promise because already the government had tarred the Wa-Charia, and Dobile-Kambali roads and work was ongoing on the Wa-Jongu road and “these give us reasons that we trusted he would deliver on his promise”, he said.
He appealed to the government to construct the Wa-Boli- Loggu and the Wa-Magazine roads, which he said were in deplorable conditions to facilitate the movement of people, goods and services, and provide traffic lights for the Kambali section of the road to help reduce accidents.
Responding to the Wa-Naa’s request, Mr Asenso-Boakye said, the government had developed two options for the development of the Wa-Bole-Bamboi portion of the Wa-Kumasi Road; one being the parching of all the potholes and bad portion of the road to make it accessible for the movement of vehicles, after which government would consider asphalting it to enhance trade.
He assured the people of the region that the government would bring development to the region to improve livelihoods at the local level.
The Roads and Highways Minister inspected ongoing construction works on the Kamba River near Nandom after he had commissioned the EU Roads at Daffiama.
GNA