Prez Mahama: 'Government has prioritised roads'

President John Dramani Mahama on Monday renewed government's commitment to maintain and construct new strategic roads throughout the country.

He said government had prioritised roads in its development agenda and would work on all feeder roads to facilitate the movement of goods and foodstuff from farming communities to the marketing centres.

President Mahama said this when he inspected works on the 4.6 kilometre Tetteh-Quarshie - Atomic Junction highway in Accra.

The road, which was scheduled to be completed couple of years ago, was delayed due to inadequate funding. It is, however, scheduled to be completed in the next three months to ease traffic congestion.

President Mahama said the expansion and construction of roads also facilitate the movement of foodstuff with rippling effect on prices of such commodities in the markets.

He affirmed that the road, which is one of 'the gang of six' roads in the capital, would soon be completed.

President Mahama urged the contractors working on the GIMPA- Agbogba road to expedite action on the project to rid it of heavy and unnecessary traffic.

On footbridges, President Mahama appealed to the contractors to come out with friendly and easy to use ones, in order to avoid spending heavily on long footbridges that would not be fully utilised.

The President appealed to drivers and pedestrians to be cautious in their movements to avoid accidents, “since in most cases good roads bring about over speeding and in some cases careless and reckless driving”.

Alhaji Amidu Sulemena, Minister of Roads and Highways, explained that the road was strictly financed by the Government hence the delays and gave the assurance that it would be completed in the coming weeks.

He said apart from the major highway, his Ministry is also completing other roads that would help ease the perennial road congestions in the capital and appealed to all road users to bear with the current inconvenience, which he promised would be temporary.

Alhaji Sulemena said the Community 18-Burma Camp road is also on track and would soon be completed.