Ghanaian Times: Let’s avoid danger looming on Kaneshie-Odorkor highway

Under the headline “Beware! Kaneshie-Odorkor highway becoming dangerous,” the Ghanaian Times on Monday published a harrowing story about looming danger on that highway in Accra.

The story painted a dangerous picture of portions of the road that had become a danger to road users.

The story, accompanied by pictures, showed several portions of the road with potholes containing water and burst drains out of them water gushing onto the highway.

Many parts of the road have become impassable following erosion that has taken place due to rainfall in the past few weeks.

The situation has forced some parts of the dual carriage road into a single lane as drivers try to dodge and meander through the potholes and in some cases to avoid faecal matter from the gutters.

What is more worrying is that the stench emanating from surrounding drainage system has become a nightmare for residents, shop owners, and food vendors around the area, as well as passengers.

According to the story, several appeals to authorities to plug the potholes and desilt the drains have not yielded any positive result.

The Ghanaian Times is surprised that a major road like the Kaneshie-Odorkor highway would be left in such deplorable state for it to pose a danger to all road users.

The road, which is a first class international highway, was constructed mainly for road users to ply in comfort but the situation today has turned the road into a death trap.

It is our humble plea to the Highways Authority, Urban Roads and the District Assemblies in the area to take immediate steps to repair the drains and the roads in order to prevent future calamity.

Anybody who has used that stretch of road in the last few days will attest to the fact that it is not easy to ply it without coming across obstacles that hitherto could not be found on it.

The whole place is now an eyesore and motorists struggle on it everyday, which should not be the case.

To avoid any unfortunate situation, authorities must, as a matter of urgency, repair the roads, and desilt the gutters to ensure that we avoid road crashes and loss of lives on the once beautiful highway the country can boast of.

We must not wait till we are confronted with road accident on that road before we take action.

We must act now.