Highway robbers use wood piles as hideouts

Kadjebi, June 8, GNA - Mr Seth Alifui, Kadjebi District Chief Executive (DCE), on Wednesday appealed to farmers and companies in extraction and processing of wood products, to desist from stockpiling and leaving of fuel wood and cut-offs along the shoulders of the highway.

He said a taskforce is to be established to arrest and set ablaze such stockpiles of logs or fuel wood along the highways, as it was being exploited as barricades by armed highway robbers.

Mr Alifui, speaking to the Ghana News Agency, in a telephone interview, recounted how highway robbers recently used such stockpiles of logs as barricade, to stage an operation on the Hohoe-Kadjebi-Nkwanta stretch. He said the highway robbers made away with valuables including cash, mobile phones and personal effects.

The DCE narrated how passengers who resisted an order to lie face down were marked by inflicting knife wounds on them. Mr Alifui said the masked robbers retreated into the bush with their booty.

He said a bye-law to the effect would be promulgated by the Assembly, when it reconvenes to give the operation a legal backing. Mr Alifui advised commercial drivers to avoid risking their lives and those of their passengers by plying such routes at "ungodly hours". He said the security apparatus in the district were reviewing their strategies.