Drivers charged between GH¢100-GH¢200 at Buipe and Yapei Bridges

Scores of commercial drivers have accused the police and military officers stationed at Buipe and Yapei Bridges checkpoints in the Central Gonja District in the Northern Region of extorting money from them before allowing them to cross the under-construction bridges.

This disturbing trend, the drivers said, follows the closure of the Buipe and Yapei bridges in the Northern Region for the past five days.

Hundreds of the stranded drivers who made the accusation called on the authorities to intervene.

According to some of the distraught drivers, who spoke to Today via telephone, trucks carrying heavy goods pay various sums of money before they are allowed to cross.

They alleged that: “Averagely, a truck would have to pay between GH¢100 and GH¢ 200.

“We the truck drivers are also victims of this naked extortion by the police and military officers,” the drivers alleged.

The two bridges constructed in the 1960s do not only link the north to the south but also Ghana to its Sahelean neighbours—Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger—who also do not have seaports to import.

The Buipe and Yapei bridges all located in the Central Gonja District in the Northern Region over the Black and White Volta respectively also link the Tamale-Kintampo stretch.

However, the temporal shutdown of the two bridges, according to information available to Today, has caused massive gridlock and devastating trade activities in the country’s largest region.

The bridges were closed down on Tuesday, October 21, 2017 by the Roads and Highways Minister, Kwesi Amoako Atta, for repairs at a cost of GH¢4 M after it underwent similar purpose just in February and May at GH¢449,000 and GH¢420,000 respectively.

The closure, which has effectively put a cork in the bottle, unleashed unprecedented sufferings on road users as they scrambled to find alternative routes through the Eastern, Central and Western corridors of the country.

Thousands of passengers with hundreds of vehicles loaded with goods were at the weekend stuck as there was no place for them to get to their various destinations.

On average, the ferry takes two hours to cross and drivers who spoke to Today said they have queued along the banks for several hours and days waiting to be ferried across.