Ghana Side Of Trans-Africa Highway In A Mess.

- Travellers Blame Kufuor’s Government

June 12 2003 will for ever be etched in the minds of motorists, businessmen and women, etcetera, who traveled the Accra to Aflao road and found themselves trapped for more than 8 hours.

At 6:15 AM, an articulator truck was stuck in muddy water due to erosion of the road by a creek near the town of Sege. The truck on its way to the capital, Accra, was loaded with cement. Another articulated truck on its way to Aflao and loaded with soft drinks got stuck in the mud adjacent to the first immobile truck, thereby blocking the road to and from Aflao.

For the next 8 hours, the contractors of the road, Daewoo Construction, did not know what to do to open up the road for traffic to flow. The contractor’s first adopted “go and get stuck we will use our heavy machinery to free you” attitude, that is, allow a car at a time to cross the muddy stream and if it get stuck, they push and pull it out with their heavy earth moving equipment.

Eventually, the water at the site became waist deep, and with the ground muddy, the road became impassable, creating one of the longest pile of vehicles many drivers, together over 800 years experience has ever seen, over ten mile stack of vehicles. The awesome scene created was amazing as drivers, driver-mates, passengers and people from surrounding villages flock the area to see for themselves the unbelievable clog of vehicles.

Policemen and Soldiers of the Ghana Armed forces dispatched to the area became spectators.

A worker for Daewoo construction, who does not want to be named, said the construction of the bridge started about two months ago but the site engineer, Mr. Nasser refused to accept advice to place tubes under the diversion to divert, control the flow of the creek and prevent the creek from washing the road away.

A 100 mile square plain, east of the road, drain water to feed the creek, which is known by motorists I interviewed to run year round.

Most motorists were angered by the fact that officials of Kuffour administration award contracts to quacks or collect money from contractors and do not supervise the work done, leading to chronic problems like this on our highways.

They voiced their concerns that even officials who were not rich prior to assumption of office have become overnight millionaires and do not care a hoot about the ordinary worker.

Occupants of a vehicle with NPP inscriptions written all over were hooted by stranded motorists by shouting thieves, thieves!

It is sad to note that the stretch of the Accra to Aflao road which is supposed to be part of the trans-African highway is littered with portholes and numerous narrow diversions which contribute to accidents and unnecessary loss of life.

Many users of the road I spoke with admitted that it will take a miracle to weed out corruption, negligence and laisser-faire attitude of government officials in Ghana.

One road user shared his thoughts with me by voicing “ if this could happen on trans-African highway, then think about the several smaller roads in the country that are neglected or contracted to friends and cronies for repair”.

Many visits I conducted to rural and urban areas of Ghana reveals most major roads are still being graveled with loans from developed countries by the Kufuor regime only to be washed away the following year. The people of Ghana are however left with nothing but the loan to pay!