By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
Residents, motorists and commuters in the Amansie West district of Ashanti will soon heave a sigh of relief from their poor road network following an initiative aimed at ensuring regular maintenance of the roads within the district, effective immediately.
This follows a partnership among the Amansie West District Assembly, Asanko Gold and the traditional leadership, leading to the inauguration of an Oversight Committee at Manso Nkwanta, the district capital, to supervise and coordinate this project.
Amansie West district covers about one thousand two hundred square kilometres, with Manso Nkwanta as the capital.
The district has a population of 109,400, with a greater majority of them actively involved in agricultural production, including cocoa and crop farming.
Despite the district’s contribution to the national GDP, it remains one of Ghana’s most deprived districts, particularly in terms of roads, where there is virtually no tarred road apart from the short distance from Anhwiankwanta.
Criminals, particularly armed robbers, have taken undue advantage of the situation, with a modus operandi of identifying the worst stretches of the deplorable roads, occasionally laying ambushes and attacking motorists and commuters.
Malik Abazi, a tricycle rider and Douglas Boateng, a truck driver, shared with GBCNews some of their concerns as users of the roads.
Abazi noted, “Armed robbers take advantage of the bad nature of the roads to attack us rampantly. It takes the police considerable time to get to the scenes, all because of the nature of the roads.”
The government’s District Roads Improvement Programme (DRIP), involving the distribution of road maintenance machinery to every district, including Amansie West, that was supposed to be used for regular maintenance of the roads, has since become a white elephant, since, according to the District Coordinating Director, Thomas Okrah, the finances of the District Assembly are not enough to put the equipment to the uses for which the central government distributed them in 2023.
“We’re most grateful to Asanko Gold. We’ve been waiting for this intervention for a very long time. It’s better late than never. Each of the DRIP machines here needs at least eight drums of fuel. If we deploy them to go and work, we need five drums of fuel for every three hours, so it’s a huge challenge for the Assembly,” Mr. Okrah noted.
To address the problem, the Amansie West District Assembly has formed a partnership with Asanko Gold, a local mining firm, with the support of the traditional authority, to put the DRIP machines to effective and efficient use.
Under this partnership, Asanko Gold has committed to bear the cost of fueling the machines and also pay the operational allowances of the DRIP workers on a sustainable basis to guarantee their regular deployment to maintain roads throughout the district all year round, including the five entry and exit roads.
At the inauguration of the initiative at Manso Nkwanta, the Sustainability Manager of Asanko Gold, Mr. Isaac Kwakye, noted that the commitment is to ensure communities within the district are resilient, stronger and more inclusive.
“This gesture is to enable the Assembly to rehabilitate our roads for mobility. This event is to pave the way for the start of the road reshaping. The partnership is to make our roads motorable,” the Sustainability Manager emphasized.
During the programme, an Oversight Committee made up of representatives of the partners and the traditional authority was inaugurated and given a cheque for fuel to ensure deployment of the DRIP machines to start work on the roads immediately.
The Chief of Tetrem, Nana Kwasi Oko, commended Asanko Gold for coming to the aid of the district, saying that one of the major socio-economic concerns of the chiefs and people in the district has always been the poor nature of the roads.
He accused succeeding governments of deceiving the people during campaign periods with promises of giving attention to the problem.
