Amasaman-Nsawam road and others

 I could not attend church service on Sunday, the May 4, partly due to the bad nature of the road I travelled on the previous day. I felt that my whole body needed rest after the stress it went through while travelling on the road to the Eastern Re­gion.

The road between Amasa­man and Nsawam, leaves a lot to be desired even though it is currently under construction. I have not given birth before since I am not a woman, but I honestly believe that if you are pregnant and you travel on that stretch of the Accra-Kumasi road, you are likely to have a miscarriage.

It is that bad and the con­tractor must regularly grade the road. A lot of people who travel on that stretch of Accra-Kumasi highway, have been complaining on various media platforms, especially on radio.

A journey from Amasaman to Nsawam, ideally should not be more than 30 minutes but currently, it takes almost twice the time simply due to the poor nature of the high­way.

Without even going through an elaborate scientific re­search, the current duration of travel clearly shows that productive time is lost for those travelling to engage in business. The cost of opera­tion for owners of passenger buses and taxis, will see a rapid rise.

Wear and tear rate will rapidly increase and hence the frequency of parts re­placement as well, which will definitely result in increase in cost of operations of the transport business.

In a country where we have productivity challenges, the last thing we want is to further worsen an already bad situation. Engineers assigned to road projects and consultants should ensure that contractors stick to the contractual terms to protect road users while construction work goes on.

While talking about bad roads, the road from Nsawam to Asamankese is also in a ter­rible shape. The last time I travelled along that road was about 6 years ago. Travelling to Asamankeae last week, I went through Suhum so I had no idea about the state of the road between Nsawam and Asamankese.

It was on my return journey that I saw that, that section of the road was also in a terrible state. The vibrations your body will be exposed to, travelling on that stretch, will ensure a sound sleep like having taken a sleeping pill. No wonder I could not wake up early enough to prepare for Church.

When I woke up my body felt like ‘Yaanom’ had taken me out during the night, to work at a construction site. I felt pains all over my body, a bit exhausted and I could not see myself sitting in church without dozing off.

For some reason, the vibra­tion my body was exposed to on my return journey, along the Nsawam- Amasaman stretch, appeared to be worse than the outward one. As if that was not enough, the taxi I took home also added its own wahala to my already exhausted body because of the terrible state of the road, from the main road to my junction, which now takes about 30 minutes.

These days I envy the witch­es, who have the ability to fly. I think it is about time we started thinking about getting some of the vehicles that can fly so maintain our health, otherwise these bad roads will hasten our departure from this earth prematurely.

NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’

By Laud-Kissi Mensah