Madina-Adenta footbridges steadily progressing

The six footbridges being constructed on the Madina-Adenta highway are progressing steadily.

When the Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited the sites on Tuesday morning, there were physical signs that the Firestone and Madina-Zongo Junction footbridges are seeing major development while the Redco, Ritz, SDA and WASS footbridges were all at different stages of construction.

Mr Shamsu Deen Isah, the Resident Engineer, told the GNA that the projects were at different levels of development because every contractor had their individual work programme, which is within the timeframe they had been given to work.

He said a contractor may decide to complete with one side of the road before the other side while some may want to do both sides concurrently so one should not expect to see the same level of development at all sites of the projects.

He said all contractors experienced some challenges, which led to the redesigning of the six projects, adding that, the levels of redesigning varied for each contractor, which partially interrupted the progress of work.

Mr Isah said there was the problem of relocating some essential structures such as heavy electrical cables, which were interfering with construction work on the footbridges.



He said inasmuch as those challenges existed, all contractors would complete work as scheduled with some finishing earlier than the six months duration and others finishing right on time.

Although Mr Isah said the work would be completed as scheduled he did not confirm the percentage of completion to the GNA, adding that, it would be difficult because, at some stages, some contractors could speed up with work.

On Thursday, November 8, last year, a taxi cab knocked down and killed a female student of WASS on the Adenta-Madina Highway, leading to riots by the residents demanding the completion of the footbridges.

The residents blocked the road and burnt car tyres as a way expressing their anger over the frequent knockdowns and accidents due to the non-availability of footbridges.



It took the timely intervention of the Police and personnel from the Ghana National Fire Service to quench the fire to restore sanity and free flow of vehicular traffic.

A day after the riot, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Roads and Highways, Transport and Interior announced that work would commence in a week’s time.

Some resident however on Monday, November 12, last year staged a peaceful protest to re-echo the need for the government to urgently fix the uncompleted footbridges to safeguard lives of pedestrians.

On the same Monday, Officials of the Ghana Highway Authority took six contractors to the site to begin work on the uncompleted footbridges after receiving the architectural drawings of the project.