Response of our local assembly leaders is unacceptable

I took my almost 86 year old mom, to see the Doctor as part of the processes for her normal checkups last Monday. 

It has been raining for some time now in Accra and a section of the main road from Kasoa to Budumburam had been closed off to traffic and so back streets are the only way, one can go to certain areas close to Budumburam with a vehicle. 

Instead of the local assembly ensuring that these alternative routes are made motorable, they have not done anything meaningful about them. 

Usually, as is the standard practice in road construction, it is the duty of the contractor to make alternative routes available to motorists when the need for diversion occurs. 

The local assembly authority also has  a responsibility to ensure that such diversions are done taking into account the safety and health of the people travelling on those streets or roads as well as the communities through which the streets passes through, especially in terms of dust suppression.

Portions along the alternative streets from my mom’s place to an area close to Kasoa where one can join the main Kasoa- Cape Coast Highway, had flooded and sedans could hardly pass through. 

My mom was so afraid that the vehicle that was bringing her to Kasoa, could be involved in an accident such that she lost appetite and could not continue to eat her food.  Exactly a week earlier I also had a similar frustrating experience when travelling to the Western Region. 

It took us two hours to cover a short distance between an area called Fan Ice to just a little beyond Budumburam.  All what was required was for the use of rocky material to fill a portion of the diverted road to enable traffic to flow smoothly but this was not done. 

On our return journey to Accra, nothing has still been done about it and we spent two hours again to cover that same short distance and one begins to wonder why the local authority leaders should be paid their monthly salaries.

Yesterday, there was a news item about the traffic that had built up along a stretch of Accra Kumadi highway between Sapeiman and Toman. 

Apparently the stretch was so deplorable that perhaps it was worse than what I encountered on the Accra –Cape Coast road. 

The road engineer whose duty it is to ensure the right thing is done by the contractor, apparently failed to do his job.  In a country where people charged with responsibility by the state, fail to do their job and are not held accountable, this is one of the results we are going to experience, on a frequent basis. 

There is a certain culture of someone else should do it and it is not helping our national developmental effort. 

We have this tendency for let us leave it to go.  Instead of citizens taking on people on authority to help correct things, everybody is afraid to tackle the problem, due to fear and as long as this attitude remains, people in authority will continue to act with impunity. 

If there is no threat of shame or embarrassment or loss of job, nothing will happen.  One of the issues I have decided to take the local assemblies on, is the proliferation of shops along streets without any thought for pedestrian walk ways. 

Pedestrians are always compelled to walk close to speeding vehicles because there are no pavements for them to use. 

What will be painful is seeing something that you know is wrong but deciding not to do anything about it and you become a victim of the problem, or someone close to you becomes a victim of it. 

Let us begin to be citizens and not spectators as President Bush once said and reiterated by President Akufo-Addo.  God bless.

By Laud Kissi-Mensah