Regional Report: Pupuni-Tortibo road nightmare haunting drivers - Residents

Correspondence from Eastern Region:

Drivers and passengers who use the Pupuni-Tortibo road in the Eastern Region are complaining bitterly about the poor nature of the road.

Some drivers, sellers along the stretch, and residents have been sharing their frustrations with GhanaWeb.

According to the drivers, the road was so terrible it was a pain driving on it.

Aside from the unbearable dust shop owners and residents have to suffer on a daily basis, the bumpy nature of the road, the drivers complained, was the cause of the rapid wearing out of their absorbers.

The road which serves as the link between Akosombo and its food basket, Tortibo, is untarred, dusty and riddled with bumps.

Despite regular resurfacing to ease the plight of road users, the affected persons argue that it’s always too little a solution to permanently fix the problem.

An employee of the Volta River Authority, Ing Godfrey Atta Jackson, who has lived in the community for the past ten years spoke to GhanaWeb.

“It is a real challenge,” answered Mr. Atta Jackson on whether the nature of the road bothered them. “One of the problems we face is that due to the unevenness of the road, we are always buying spare parts for our cars.

For instance I change my shocks almost every six months, I have issues.

“Even now as I’m talking to you, when I fall into potholes, I can feel the bump,” said the worried engineer who said he changed his shocks only nine months ago.

With the dusty road posing health challenges to road users and residents, he was worried that inhaling the dust was a bother.

“The dust that we inhale on this road, you can imagine…and we are inhaling this day in, day out,” lamented Mr. Atta Jackson.

He said though they have received countless assurances from the Asuogyaman District Assembly to fix the road, nothing has been done and he thus appealed for works to be carried out on the road.

A commercial tricycle operator, Abu Tetteh who has lived in the vicinity for twenty years, blamed political leaders for failing to fix the road despite several assurances from them.

“All the MPs that came around only came to tell us after voting they’ll help us to renovate the road but it’s like they don’t try for us. If they come, they just go, when they say, they don’t do it for us.

“This is a major road, the food from the village is all coming around this place so if they don’t help us how can we get food in the town?” he quizzed.

Abu is also particularly worried about the financial cost in maintaining his tricycle due to the bad nature of the road.

“If you have a tricycle that maybe can take like two years, within like one year, then it keeps giving you problems…maintaining it costs us a lot of money that we can’t even pay,” the exasperated tri-cyclist told GhanaWeb, ending with an appeal to authorities to fix the problem.

A taxi driver who has lived in the community for the past thirty years, Raphael Agbah sharing his experiences said though there had been some resurfacing of the road in recent times to improve its use, authorities must improve drainages on the sides of the road.

Madam Comfort Kwao who sells provisions by the dusty road also complained bitterly.

She said, “What is important is for them to come fix the road for us, the dust is really worrying us. If you clean the items [when closing] you have to close them again in the morning.”

On whether the dust posed health challenges to them, Madam Comfort Kwao said they have no option but to live with it.

“As for the dust, you are always coughing. It enters you so when you fall sick then you go to the hospital so fixing the road will prevent us from sicknesses,” she said.

A kenkey seller, Vida Akua who has plied her business on the stretch for the past five years also said, “The road is so dusty when the vehicles pass. It brings us sicknesses and my food items are also covered in dust. We plead with the government to come fix our road for us.”

Jonathan Ayamdor is Assemblyman for Pupuni Electoral Area. He lamented that despite the road leading to a food producing area, its state is worrying.

“The road is not motorable at all and looking at the community, it's Tortibo, they supply the whole Akosombo township with food.

That’s where they bring the food from to the Akosombo market for people to buy,” he noted.

According to him, drivers have taken advantage of the situation to charge exorbitant fares.

Mr. Ayamdor said, “The problem is because the place is not far and the road is not motorable and they’ll charge the way they like…so that’s the problem.”

He reiterated the high maintenance cost to drivers and motorists as a result of the dust being endured by both residents and road users.

Asked if he had brought this to the notice of the Local Assembly and the steps being taken, the Assemblyman who said the Asuogyaman District Assembly was already aware of the problem said, “Always when I tell them, they say it’s in the pipeline, it’ll, by all means, come so exercise patience.”