Foodstuffs rotting in Sene districts

Foodstuffs are getting rotten in the Sene East and West districts of the Brong Ahafo Region because of the lack of motorable roads to cart the produce to market centres in the two districts and beyond.

The 31km Atebubu-Kwame Danso road has been abandoned four years after the late President John Evans Atta Mills cut a sod for the construction of the road at a cost GH¢32.5 million, which was supposed to be a single-seal bituminous surface dressing and single-dash carriage two-way road awarded to Wa-based contractor, A and N. The contract was subsequently re-awarded to Ghanem Construction Firm, but nothing has been done on the road.

The two districts are the hub of farming in the region --- producing yam, rice, cassava, maize and livestock and many other crops, not for consumption only in the region but the entire country.

With the setting in of the rains, the roads have become slippery as a result of its clayey nature, which has made it very difficult to ply the roads to the hinterlands of the two districts to cart foodstuff to the market centres. Communities worst hit in Sene West include Bantama, Wiase, Akyemede Bator, Menko, Lemu, Kofi Gyan, Chaboba and Kyeamekrom. Sene East communities where farmers cannot cart their foodstuff are Bassa, Bodinka, Nyankotore, Premuase, Kojokrom, and Defour Bator.

Kofi Anyobode, a yam farmer at Chaboba, a major yam producing community in the Sene West District, in an interview with The Finder said he took a loan from the bank and it would be very difficult for him to break even to repay the loan, though he had a good harvest; carting his produce to the farming centres has become a problem, even tractors cannot ply the road.

The Sene West District Director of Agriculture, S.Y. Apiiga says farmers in the district are really suffering.

“We are facing a lot of marketing problems because of bad road network in the district. This has led to the collapse of a yam market we used to have in Kwame Danso. Because of the bad roads people were not patronising the market and this lead to collapse of the market. Last year, we had a bumper harvest of maize and we are finding it difficult to sell; the price of maize went as a low as GH?50. I want to appeal to organisations and individuals who need yam and maize to come to the Sene districts because we have a lot,” he noted.

The District Chief Executive for Sene East, Francis Kofi Baah, said the road has not been constructed because of lack of funds, but the assembly is grading portions that are in deplorable state.