By Laudia Sawer
Tema, July 11, GNA – Residents of Tema Community 25, Dawhenya, Prampram, and environs are to embark on a demonstration on Friday, July 12, 2024, to impress on the government to fix the Kpone-Dawhenya road.
The road, which is an important road that serves as a trade transit for countries such as Togo, Burkina Faso, and other West African countries, has been in a deplorable state with heavy traffic congestion throughout the day.
Several trucks are seen daily on the road carting cattle, onions, and other items from neighbouring countries into Ghana, affirming the importance of the Kpone Barrier-Dawhenya road.
Construction works on the road aimed at turning the road into a three-lane dual carriageway have stalled, with trenches dug at the sides of the roads and roundabouts created with roofing sheets abandoned in the middle of the road.
This development, residents and travellers say, has created unbearable traffic, with people spending hours on the road and wasting productive time, reaching work and school late and tired.
The abandoned project also led to the collection of water around the roundabout, especially at the Kpone barrier, forcing drivers to drive through flood waters, while the Bel Aqua Company frontage also developed deep, dangerous trenches that vehicles and pedestrians could fall into, especially when it rains.
According to residents, some of them resort to using inner roads that are not vehicle-worthy, indicating that the contractors could at least grade the inner roads to make them motorable to ease traffic on the main road until the stalled construction works are completed.
Mr Kwame Nkrumah, a resident and a member of the organisers, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the residents decided to embark on the demonstration because the traffic and deplorable road situation on such an important road was worrying.
Mr. Nkrumah said, for instance, that he commutes from his residence in Prampram at 0530 hours and the earliest he reached work in Accra is 0830 hours, spending hours between Dawhenya and Kpone-Barrier.
“The most worrying part is that we have to wake the kids up so early just to drop them off on time at Community 25. They sleep uncomfortably in the car when going to school and returning home. The traffic is perpetual both in the mornings and in the evenings,” he lamented.
He added that apart from the stress and health implications, the situation was also taking a toll on residents’ pockets as they burned fuel in traffic and had to visit the mechanic workshops weekly to fix their cars as they bumped into holes on the road.
He called on all residents and road users to join the demonstration to register their discomfort with the government, noting that they have had a series of meetings with the police in accordance with the Public Order Act.
The demonstration would start at 0600 hours from the Kpone barrier and end at the Community 25 junction.
GNA