Okyehene laments “criminal” nature of E/R roads

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Category: Development

Created on Monday, 21 July 2014 00:00

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Okyehene laments “criminal” nature of E/R roads

President of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, Okyehene Amoatia Ofori-Opanin II, has described the nature of the Suhum-Asamankese road as “criminal” due to its dangerous nature.

He has therefore called on government to step up efforts towards the rapid reconstruction of the roads.

The Eastern Region Paramount Chief made these remarks when he led colleague chiefs on a tour of some poor and abandoned roads in the region.

He said the poor nature of roads in the region does not only affect people or businesses in the region but other people as well because the roads are major link routes to Accra and other parts of the country.

According to the Okyehene, the development of every country depends on infrastructure and education, and charged government to focus its attention on the roads linking communities across the country.

Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, Mavis Ama Frimpong, sympathized with the concerns of the Eastern Regional House of Chiefs, but urged them to exercise restraint.

She also recalled that the chiefs had put these same concerns to President John Mahama when he (President) toured the region some three months ago.

“It’s true that the roads are not good. But it does not take only three months to fix roads or to go through the processes of awarding contracts”, said the Deputy Eastern Regional Minister.

She explained that most of the roads that the Okyehene complained about had already been awarded to contractors since the latter part of 2011.

“But unfortunately the two contractors that are working on the road then, one had completed only 29% while the other had completed 9% of the work…but it does not take just a day to terminate a contract that had been given already”, he said.

She said she has recommended that the contract of the engineer who had only completed 9% of the road to be terminated, adding it takes times for these to be accomplished.

She gave assurance that steps are being taken to make roads in the region better.

[GN]

Source: Myjoyonline.com