RESIDENTS OF Kintampo in the Brong-Ahafo Region have embarked on a massive demonstration to register their displeasure at the abandoned Kintampo dual carriage road which has become a death trap, killing more than 15 residents in the past year.
The peaceful non-partisan protest, led by the Concerned Citizens of Kintampo, saw hundreds of residents thronging the streets on Friday to put pressure on the municipal authorities to ensure that the contractor working on the road stretching from Kintampo Magazine to the New Market area returned to site to complete the project.
Currently, only one side of the dual carriage road has been completed, compelling pedestrians to compete with vehicles as well as heavy duty vehicles which usually park on the shoulders of the road for space.
‘It is indeed very unfortunate and most regrettable for a town considered to be Ghana’s geographical centre… [to] have its major road half-way constructed…,’ a petition signed by Jones Kwabena Addai, a leading member of the group, said.
The petitioners noted that a number of persons, numbering about 16, including a five-year-old girl and the NPP Youth Organiser of the area, had been killed through accidents on the road.
Their tragic deaths, they noted, could have been avoided if the road had been fully completed and zebra crossings, speed ramps and all the necessary road signs put at the appropriate places.
‘The road as it is now is nothing short of a certified death trap that poses a great danger to both motorists and pedestrians…,’ the group stated.
The abandoned road
DAILY GUIDE gathered that the confusion over who was to reconstruct the road started when the Techiman-Kintampo road was awarded without proper inclusion of the main Kintampo township road.
As a result, the contractor only decided to construct a single carriage as stipulated in his contract, leaving the other half in a deplorable state.
The demonstrators claimed that several promises were made about the road when the funeral of the late sister of the First Lady, Lordina Mahama, was held in Kintampo last year.
They however said nothing had since been done, thereby compelling them to protest over what they claimed was utter neglect by government.
FROM Fred Tettey Alarti-Amoako, Kintampo
Email: [email protected]
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