Blue Cresent residents raise concerns about flood, bad roads

Some floods in the area

Residents of Blue Cresent in the Katamanso Municipality of the Greater Accra Region have raised concerns about the effects of contin¬uous rainfall in the area which causes flooding on their roads.
Roads according to residents, are usually covered in water, making it difficult for vehicles to ply the roads.
That, they complained, had affected livelihoods as residents were unable to access transportation to carry out their daily activities within and outside the community.
Consequently, drivers had taken advantage of the situation to increase transport fares since they had to deal with the impact of the flooding on their vehicles.
In an interview with The Spectator, a motorist, Mr Kelvin Tamakloe, lament¬ed “it is difficult to ply the roads, and commercial drivers are affected by the flood. We find it difficult to use some roads due to potholes covered by the flood.”
He went on to highlight the damages these floods had caused their motor¬cycles adding that commercial riders spent their profit repairing damages on their motorcycles which consequently resulted in the increase in fares.
Thieves, he said, also took the op¬portunity to snatch bikes from riders due to the slow movements caused by the bad nature of the roads.
“Some drivers close very early to avoid being attacked at night, living commuters to their fate,” he stated.
“Transportation issues here are troubling and causing we commercial drivers a lot of hardship. We we spend so much repairing our vehicles than we save,” Mr Benjamin Kofi, a commercial driver said.
According to him, most of his col¬league drivers stopped loading to the community because of the bad nature of the road and concentrated on work¬ing in other communities.
A resident, Madam Diana Kaba said businesses were being affected by this situation since finding a vehicle to move around had become a problem.
“Uber and Bolt drivers do not accept any ride to the community because of the fear of damaging their vehicles. Movements of those who accept addi¬tional charges, most times our move¬ments are restricted especially when there is a torrent,” she said.
“We also have to depend on com¬mercial Kia drivers or private cars to convey us to our destinations when we sometimes stay out late, because most commercial drivers would not work when it is past 7 pm, and we have also lost trust in “okada” drivers because most of them have taken advantage of the situation to steal from us. They drop you somewhere quiet and rob you of your belongings,”she stressed.
With the benevolence of some mem¬bers of the community, some of the potholes had been partially fixed with a spread of sand and stones to improve the road conditions temporarily.
The Assemblyman for the area, Mr Samuel Abbrey, had not been left out of the frustrations as he said, “ I have my two cars at the fitting shop be¬cause of the bad nature of the road, it is something I am so much aware of which also affects me but it is beyond my control, I have spoken to the au¬thorities but all to no avail.”
According to the Assembly member, the government had turned deaf ears to their plights after several petitions and demonstrations.
Mr Abbrey said “if I say there is hope, I will be misleading you because there is no sign of hope, what I am seeing now is that, the government is trying to punish the whole of the Katamanso municipality. It is the central govern¬ment that is supposed to work on the road but there is no sign that the road will be fixed,” he stated.
Francisca Kaba
Ghana Institute of Journalism