Residents form pressure groups to compel duty bearers in Upper East to address development challenges

The rehabilitation of the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road, the Bolgatanga town roads and the need for reliable traffic lights have become some of the vexed issues in the Upper East Region.

The issue of bad roads in the region is one of the many development challenges facing the region which residents usually talk about. It has become so important to them to the extent that a number of pressure groups have been formed to compel duty bearers to address the challenges as soon as possible.

The road issue has also taken a political dimension as residents have warned duty bearers, politicians and successive governments that they risk losing their votes in 2020 and beyond if they fail to fix the major roads in the region.

Pressure groups

To send a strong signal to governments and duty bearers, some of the residents have formed pressure groups with names such as Narrative Changers and the Movement for Upper East Development.

The two groups have on countless occasions staged a number of street protests, organised press conferences, public lectures and also embarked on social media campaigns to sensitise people, especially residents in the region to rally support to compel duty bearers to address their development issues.

The Narrative Changers and the Movement for Upper East Development have all mentioned the need for the much-talked-about Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road to be fixed as soon as possible.

The Movement for Upper East Development has mentioned some of the key roads in the Bolgatanga Municipality that they believe must be fixed as, the taxi rank-Zuarungu road, the Yarigabisi-Gambibgo road, the Zaare-Nyariga road, the Sumbrungu-Zorkor road, the Akayonga road and the Navrongo Secondary School-Kologo road. They have also raised concerns about “the unavailability of access roads within some major communities in the Bolgatanga Municipality.”

Members of the movement have also pointed out that “as a matter of fact the entire Bolgatanga town roads need complete restructuring, which will require linking roads to enable easy access to certain communities and reduce traffic on the very few existing roads".

Concerns about non-functional traffic lights have also been raised on various platforms including radio programmes in the municipality where residents call in to express their concerns. Some chiefs have also complained on various platforms and have called on the authorities to do something about the roads in the region.

One of the prominent chiefs in the region who has added his voice to the need to pay much attention to the roads in the region is the Paramount Chief of the Talensi Traditional Area, Tongraan Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang.

The Tongraan has expressed concern about the Bolgatanga town roads which he described as “nothing to write home about” and has also stressed the need for an accelerated approach to repair the damaged roads in the region, particularly the Bolgatanga town roads and the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road.

The Paramount Chief of Bawku, Naba Asigri Abugrago Azoka II, has also on several platforms raised concerns about completion of the Bolgatanga-Bawku road.

Armed robbers

Many challenges also confront commuters and drivers who ply the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road due to its poor nature. Armed robbers have been taking advantage of the poor road situation to attack road users, particularly around the area of the Tilli forest and so anytime commuters are using the road it has always been their prayer that the vehicles they board should not break down around that area where robbers hide in the bush to attack them.

As part of efforts to address the robbery situation, the Bawku Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Yao Tettegah, has revealed that as of now a barrier has been erected in that area and so the robbery rate has reduced to its barest minimum, although he could not readily provide statistics.

He explained that it used to be very rampant and so the police had to adopt various strategies to address the issue. A number of accidents leading to deaths and injuries have also been recorded on the Bolgatanga-Bawku road.

Road engineers and other experts, however, say a standard road should last for 25 years “with maintenance.” They have also advised that roads should not be allowed to deteriorate completely before rehabilitating them, otherwise they would be more expensive to repair.

Arguably, because they are capital intensive, roads are usually allowed to deteriorate completely before they are fixed, which engineers believe is not the best.

The road  

The 103-kilometre Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road passes through six districts — Bolgatanga, Binduri, Pusiga, Garu, Bawku West and the Bawku Municipality and links the Upper East Region to Burkina Faso and Togo. When completed it is expected that trade and other business activities would increase between Ghana and its neighbouring countries.

Work on the road began in the latter part of 2016 and was expected to be completed within two-and-half years. The preliminary contract sum for the road project was pegged at about GH¢613 million and two contractors: Mawums Construction Limited, a Ghanaian company, and Queiroz Galvao from Brazil were awarded the contract to work on the road.

However, the contractors withdrew equipment from the project site for about a year due to the non-payment of arrears owed them by the government.

When President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo visited the Upper East Region in August this year he assured the people that the road would be completed before the 2020 general election.

The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Kwasi Amoako-Atta, explained during the President's visit that the initial processes to procure logistics for the road project went wrong which was why it was halted.

He then announced the efforts being made to secure an initial funding of €68 million from the ICBC Standard Bank of the United Kingdom to enable work on the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road to resume.

A second tranche of €60 million will also be made available as work progresses and will bring the project’s total funding to €128 million.

However, residents, commuters, drivers and the pressure groups are still keeping an eagle eye on activities on the Bolgatanga-Bawku road, although there have been some assurances from both the government and contractors that this time around the project will be completed.

On Tuesday, December 3, 2019, for instance, some members of the Narrative Changers visited the site again to see how work was progressing on the road and they have planned another trip to the site before the end of the month of December.

For now, the Narrative Changers have seen for themselves that the contractors are on site but the issue has to do with the pace of work.

Town roads

The Department of Urban Roads in the region for its part has been carrying out a number of activities in 2019 aimed at improving the Bolgatanga town roads.

These include partial reconstruction of the 2.9 kilometres of the Bolgatanga Junior Staff Quarters roads,10 kilometres of pothole patching, reshaping and other repair works on selected roads, and upgrading of the 8.94-kilometre Zuarungu/Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority road.

Rehabilitation of the five-kilometre Tindonmolgo-Sherigu road has also been awarded on contract while a 15-kilometre asphalt outlay in the Bolgatanga Municipality is also ongoing.

The department is also working on roads in Navrongo and the Bawku Municipality. While some of the projects are ongoing, there are still other road contracts that have been recommended for termination and they are the five-kilometre Zaare roads in the Bolgatanga Municipality and the Pusiga town roads.

When contacted, the Regional Director of the Department of Urban Roads, Mr Peter Amoako, stated: “We have overlaid our Central Business District roads in Bolgatanga with asphalt and their conditions are good." He said “besides that we are undertaking reshaping and pothole patching on the other unpaved and paved roads respectively to improve upon their conditions for public use.”

“Normally during the rainy season, the unpaved roads deteriorate but we have made provisions to improve upon their conditions when the rainy season is over and we have started working on some of them,” he stated.

Traffic lights, accidents

The non-functioning traffic lights which have for some time now become a source of worry for some residents in the Bolgatanga Municipality has been awarded on contract to Dakal Limited. The director of Urban Roads intimated that eight of the traffic lights in the Bolgatanga and Bawku municipalities had been earmarked for maintenance.

They include the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) traffic lights on the main Bolgatanga-Navrongo road, the MTN-Goil intersection traffic lights, the commercial street joining a portion of the Bolgatanga-Bawku road traffic lights, the Agricultural Development Bank/Bank for Africa intersection traffic lights and the traffic light around the Total Filling Station Number Two along the Bolgatanga-Bawku road.

When the traffic light issues are addressed it would also help prevent the situation where some vehicles and motorbikes crash for lack of patience, miscommunication on the road and speeding.

Some road safety officials have stated that deficiencies in road infrastructure are contributory factors to road crashes. Indeed, current figures made available by the Upper East Regional branch of the National Road Safety Commission showed that from January to September 2019 a total of 184 accidents were recorded with 49 deaths and 170 injuries.

However, the Regional Head of the Authority, Mr Dennis Yeribu, has maintained that 90 per cent of road crashes are due to human errors, while accidents due to poor road infrastructure were minimal.

“We cannot deny the fact that the poor nature of roads is a contributory factor but then it all depends on the driver who should drive defensively, taking into consideration the condition of the road and other environmental factors," Mr Yeribu pointed out.