Thursday, 28 March

Storm-ravaged Dodowa-Afienya road now mud-trapping cars daily

General News
A driver of a school bus trying to free the car from the mud trap

Several cars have been stuck at different times and days on a section of the 15.3-km untarred Dodowa-Afienya road which has been destroyed by recent downpours in the Shai Osudoku constituency of the Greater Accra Region. 

Huge trucks, school buses, commercial cars, taxis, SUVs and even passenger motorbikes (okada) are among some of the cars that have got stuck on the Dodowa end of the road in recent times after rainfalls.

The verhicles get stuck in the huge muddy gullies on the road which are right in front of the office of Ghana Water Company Limited.

Each time a car got stuck, it took the magnanimity of other road users to help free it from the muddy road.

The last time the road had any major work done on it was in mid-2016 in the lead-up to that year’s general elections.

Editorial: Read below a piece of opinion article done on the road recently:

If there were a Hall of Shame for bad roads in the whole world, Ghana’s 15.3-km Dodowa-Afienya road would surely have been the topmost inductee – and dishonourably so.

And, if cars could talk, they’d wail and curse that stretch ad nauseum.

It is a driver’s nightmare.

The potholes are actually gullies and valleys; and names are yet to be invented to describe the shapes they’ve etched on that disgraceful stretch of a road.

The dirt road is dotted with river-size ditches so deep they retain rainwater for weeks after a rainy day.

The bumps are a million and one; and the puddles a zillion and more.

Even huge trucks get stuck in them every now and then. Sadly, this gully-, valley- and river-riddled stretch is travelled by pregnant women, schoolchildren, market women, teachers, farmers, the high-and-mighty and the low-and-lowly on a daily basis – to and fro.

It was awarded to a contractor for fixing several years ago but for some strange reason, it remains untouched, unfixed, unattended to and all the ‘uns’ you can think of. It is such a shame that a bad road of that extent exists in Ghana in this 21st Century.

Unfortunately, the recent downpours keep deteriorating it further, as each raindrop eats away its share of dirt on the forgotten road.

This is a kind reminder to the minister of roads and highways, Mr Kwasi Amoako-Attah – just in case he has forgotten about the existence of, and need to fix that road – to turn his focus there.

And Mr Minister, in case you are not aware of that road, please take a drive on it with even your most rugged and fortified SUV and I’m sure that car would have its own Jericho moment.

The people of Dodowa and Afienya deserve better Mr Minister.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Classfmonline.com