Upper West chiefs agitate for good roads
Traditional leaders in the Upper West Region last Tuesday led agitations for improved road surfaces in the region at the “Government for the People Forum” in Wa.
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Kuoro Buktie Kuri Limann, the Paramount Chief of the Gwollu Traditional Area, who opened the question time segment, expressed grave concern about the poor state of roads beyond the Wa Municipality and appealed for repair work to be carried out on the road surfaces in particular.
Aside from talking about the poor state of roads linking his traditional area in Sissala West to other parts of the region, he stressed the general lack of good roads across the region and linked the situation to the slow pace of development in the region.
Other chiefs who took their turn also dwelt on the lack of good roads in the region, for which reason discussions at the four-hour forum were dominated by the poor state of roads in the region.
At least 22 of the 31 questions posed were on roads.
The Deputy Minister for Roads and Highways, Mr Adjei Mensah, had earlier told the gathering at the Redemption Hall of the Wa Senior High and Technical School about the government’s commitment to improve roads in the region as he outlined a number of road projects that had been awarded on contract or were in the process of being awarded on contract.
They include the construction of the Navrongo-Tumu road, grading of the Fian-Wahabu road, the construction of the Wa-Han road, upgrading and construction of the Nadowli-Lawra-Hamile road and the construction of the Jirapa-Domwina road, all of which had seen varied levels of work.
Mobilising for work
The deputy minister said contractors were either mobilising to go to site or that the documentation processes for the award of other road contracts, including the Jambusu road along the Black Volta and the Bulenga road from Wa, were still in progress.
Currently, 261 kilometres of the region’s 1,077 km trunk roads have been paved with bitumen surface, while only 56.65km of the region’s 3,152 km of feeder roads have been paved with bitumen surface, according to the Regional Minister, Alhaji Amin Amidu Sulemani.
Feeder roads
Briefing the forum about the state of affairs in the region, Alhaji Sulemani said, “The major challenge now is how to improve the condition of the roads in the region, especially during the rainy season which sometimes cuts off some communities from the rest of the region,” the regional minister said.
He said work was ongoing to improve the Wa-Hamile and Wa-Han-Tumu roads, adding that those roads were of interest to the government as they formed part of the international roads,between Ghana and the Sahelian countries.
