Let’s avoid disaster on Ayi Mensah-Aburi road
Road construction through a rocky and hilly environment is quite a labour-intensive and costly endeavour.
When the Kufuor government decided to break through the rocky Aburi hills to construct a dual carriageway from Pantang to the Peduase Lodge in one of the phases of the Tetteh Quarshie-Mampong road, many people thought it was an impossible task.
Until work was completed on that portion of the road and even up to Mampong, the travelling public dreaded that road with its many potholes and undulating surface.
The road was in a very deplorable condition and the chiefs and the people of Akuapem never missed the opportunity to tell the government to rehabilitate it.
While the people bemoaned the bad nature of the road, successive governments did not miss the opportunity to assure them that work would begin soon by indicating the budget for it in the financial statements to Parliament from the 1990s to some time in the 2000s.
We know that many road projects in the country were financed with donor support, with a percentage coming from counterpart funding. In circumstances when the government has decided to fund road projects from the Consolidated Fund or internally generated funds, work has stalled in the process because funding has dried up.
The same could not be said of the Pantang-Mamfe road which was completed without any major bottlenecks, except that the work went beyond schedule because the dual carriageway through the rocky hills was not part of the original plan.
Somehow, funding was secured for the variation in the works that have been described as one of the most complex engineering designs in the country.
In spite of the delight and pleasure of travelling that the improved road brought in its wake, recent developments on the Ayi Mensah-Peduase stretch have exposed our maintenance culture.
Now users of that portion of the road dread the rocks that hang dangerously on the hills adjoining the dual carriageway.
The activities of foreigners and estate developers are also putting pressure on the rocks anytime there is a downpour or slight earth movement.
Some time last year, some portions of the hills or slopes started giving way, thereby posing a danger to road users, as it is feared the boulders could fall on the Aburi-Accra section of the road and destroy lives and property.
The slow action of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) in dealing with the danger on the road once again exposes the gaps in our maintenance culture.
Meanwhile, we welcome the decision of the GHA to award the ‘Aburi falling rocks’ contract at the end of this month to one of the four construction companies that bid for the project.
Regular users of the road know that the boulders have become very exposed and weak from the vagaries of the weather and anytime it rains water and rocks from the hills take over parts of the road.
It is better late than never, so goes the saying, and the Daily Graphic urges the GHA to stay within its plan to select one contractor to stabilise the rocks as soon as possible.
The state spent so much to build the road and we must not allow our poor maintenance culture to destroy the landscape of the Aburi hills which have been enhanced by the first-ever dual carriageway through a rocky formation in the country.
