Gory Ordeal: Managers Enjoy Air-Conditioned Offices; Cashiers Die In Scorching Sun

In what could be described as the best pictorial representation of life in present day Ghana and the world over where managers enjoy at the expense of their employees, the lives of several youth sighted at various entry points into the capital now lie in extreme danger.

Aged between 25 and 40 years, the youth who have accepted the responsibility of collecting tolls for their employers and the nation, cannot boast of any meaningful life.

This is because these youth who work at some of the country’s tollbooths have to battle it out with the changing weather patterns to make a living.

The energetic men and women sighted at the Adjei Kojo and Afienya tollbooths at the eastern ends of the capital have to risk their lives on that busy road on a daily basis without any form of shelter.

The situation is however different for toll collectors on the Doboro-Kasoa road who enjoy the comfort of tollbooths.

Rather those on Adjei Kojo and Afienya tollbooths have to make use of empty containers which serve as crush barriers.

And these same empty containers, Today discovered, are also used as tables on which they lay their ever-unfinished tickets which they issue out to drivers who ply on that route.

Thus, it is expected that drivers approaching the site of the toll would reduce speed and gracefully give tolls to the helpless youth who hide in tiny containers installed at the location.

However, the often high temperatures that result in unbearable heat in the containers force the youth out to the streets and acting like policemen on duty, they raise their hands to stop every passing vehicle.

But for how long will these youth continue to risk their lives?

In the case of Ayi Kumah, Today found out that the toll collectors cannot predict whether they can regain their lives when an over-speeding vehicle descending the mountains runs on them.

In fact, the paper can confirm that such mode of operating a toll booth is not only risky but deadly due to evidence deduced from history.

Some years ago, their colleague toll collectors at Beposo in the Western Region lost their lives in similar circumstances when an over-speeding articulated-truck which failed its brakes ran on them.

Therefore, if history is a best guide, then these youth are right in calling for shelter.

More than three thousand (3,000) vehicles ply that section of the road daily from the North through the Eastern corridors and with an increase in Road Tolls, the paper discovered that the managers are making seven thousand cedis (GH¢7,000) at the expense of the often celebrated ‘future leaders.’

Happenings on the Ashaiman-Afienya road were no different as toll collectors are left in the scorching sun during operation.

It was recently that drivers were spared the wickedness of driving on pot-holes ridden roads before approaching the toll.

That section of the road is under construction and that has left the toll operators with no option than to be under umbrellas during work.

Drivers plying the roads out of sympathy stressed the importance of constructing tollbooths for the collectors with some calling for the building of concrete booths to protect them from crashes.

“Many toll collectors die through car accidents as a result of brake failure and reckless driving,” a driver, one Mr. Mensah, told this paper.