General News of Monday, 17 February 2020
Source: classfmonline.com
2020-02-17
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President Nana Akufo-Addo has said the situation where farm produce go waste as a result of bad feeder roads, will soon be a thing of the past.
Speaking to the chiefs and people of Nkwanta in the Oti Region on Sunday, 16 February 2020 as part of his three-day tour of the area, President Akufo-Addo said he will end that situation.
“Feeder roads are critical to us”, he told the chiefs and people, adding: “We know the produce of many farmers get rotten in the farms due to the deplorable state of the roads here”.
“We will put an end to that”, the President promised, adding: “We will replicate the feeder roads cocoa construction model here so that we can cart all the foodstuff to the market”.
“You will see the results soon,” he vowed.
Oti is replete with farmers and serves as a major food basket for the country but poor roads make it difficult for farm produce to be transported to major market avenues, thus, resulting in them going bad.
The same situation pertains in some other farming areas of the country.
Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, on Wednesday, 13 November 2019, declared 2020 as the year of roads when he read the budget to Parliament, promising that the Akufo-Addo government will, this year, satisfy Ghanaians’ thirst for good roads.
“Today, the cry everywhere in Ghana is about the poor state of our roads”, he told the legislature, adding: “It is an unprecedented cry and it makes you wonder where all the roads in the NDC’s Green Book are”.
“Mr Speaker, this is why we are going to focus more on fixing our roads across the country in 2020 and beyond”, revealing: “To get the road sector moving and contractors back to work, the government will pay 80% of all contractors”.
“We have identified critical roads across each of the 16 regions and construction would begin on all these critical roads soon”, he promised.
“Mr Speaker”, Mr Ofori-Atta added: “Ghanaians want action on our roads, not words or plans or Green Book claims about what has been done. We intend to swing into action and let our work do the talking for us”. “Mr Speaker, with this large number of roads to be constructed, the year 2020 can aptly be described as ‘The Year of Roads’ along with a focus on all our flagship programmes”, the minister added.
According to Mr Ofori-Atta, among the roads to be constructed are 50-km trunk roads and 25-km urban roads.
He said there will also be the construction of seven bridges on the trunk roads, five on feeder roads and three on urban road networks, with 17 engineering studies, comprising five on trunk roads, two on feeder roads and 10 on urban roads.
“The development activities undertaken in 2019 include the construction of the Pokuase interchange with the construction of 10 km of selected roads, segregated walkways, footbridges and underpasses as well as drainage structures at Pokuase. Mr Speaker, works are progressing steadily on the Tema Motorway Roundabout.
“The project is aimed at improving the traffic capacity at the Tema Motorway Roundabout by constructing a 3–tier interchange. Works on the underpass are almost completed and four pedestrian bridges are about 90 per cent completed”.
“Works commenced on the first phase of the Obetsebi-Lamptey Interchange. This is made up of the Kaneshie-Graphic Road Interchange to be completed in 24 months.”