Sekyere Afram Plains settlers to avoid voting in 2016
Electorate in parts of Sekyere Afram Plains Constituency have threatenead to not exercise their franchise in the upcoming 2016 parliamentary and presidential elections due to the poor state of road network in the area.
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The areas involved are Funsua and Akoma and their surrounding villages.
They have threatened to also prevent members of political parties from entering the two communities and their environs to have an election campaign.
Spokespersons in the two communities made this known when the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sekyere Afram Plains, Alex Adomako Mensah, visited them as part of his familiarisation techniques to acquaint himself with living conditions of his constituents.
Abject poverty
They recalled that when a new constituency, Kumawu, was created from Sekyere East during the Kufuor administation, they were left alone to deal with their development problems, which had resulted in the continuous abject poverty.
They said they had some hope that things would be better when the Sekyere Afram Plains Constituency was created from Kumawu in the runup to the 2012 elections, but all political promises especially those to the effect that their road would be made passable, had not been fulfilled.
They said due to the poor road condition, people in the area had to cover long distances by foot before they could access healthcare, a situation which was fatal to patients in emergency conditions in the area.
Teachers
Again, due to the bad nature of the road, they said teachers who were posted to the communities had all sought transfer, so the communities had to raise funds to resource a few senior and junior high school leavers around to help with teaching.
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They said most of the people in the area were into producing charcoal and foodstuffs such as yam, rice and cassava in large quantities, but due to the bad nature of the road, they had to cross River Afram to Semboa community in the Eastern Region instead of nearby district capital, Drobonso, to sell their produce.
They also complained of unsafe drinking water, adding that whenever they fetched water, they had to wait for the water to settle before they could drink.
Patience
However, the MP, who was accompanied by both the Constituency Chairman of the NDC, Mr Gibson Akroma, and the Vice Chairman, Mr Kofi Yahaya, asked the people to exercise patience since the ruling NDC was a listening government .
He said he had never reneged on his promise as MP to lobby for development in the area, including keeping roads in good shape, adding that he had personally met President John Dramani Mahama on matters of development in the area, especially on the road from Bosomfo Junction at Mosipanin through Akoma to Fonsua.
He showed them copies of series of letters he had written to different government offices concerning the road project, saying, “I have never relented in my efforts to put pressure on persons who matter as far as construction of roads in my constituencies is concerned”.