Residents of Kokoano and adjoining communities in the Ashanti Region live in fear as a two-year-old gully eats rapidly into portions of their road.
The almost 5-feet gaping gully is a ticking time bomb ready to wreak havoc as road users dangerously ply one lane of the single-carriage road.
The residents want the government to fix the deplorable road network as economic activities grind to a halt.
The Kokoano road is one of the many deplorable ones within the Afigya Kwabre district the motorists dread plying.
The untarred road, stretching a little over one kilometer, is riddled with potholes and yet to be graded for construction.
In an attempt to curb any disaster, a concerned resident has in the past 2 years constructed a sandbag defense mechanism to prevent spillage when it rains.
But the strong water currents will not allow the mini defense to last.
“We have family. The gully looked dangerous. So I fetch some wood and filled sacks with sand to build a defense. But because the water current was stronger it destroyed it.
It’s scary when it floods. No car is able to use the road. I always help the children cross the road. I even have sandbag built in front of my shop to prevent the water from entering my shop,” Kusi, a resident, told Luv FM’s Emmanuel Bright Quaicoe.
In 2020, the government cut sod for the construction of 9.5kms of roads in Atimatim and its surrounding communities, including Kokoano.
But the project has since not been completed.
Children of school-going age risk their lives commuting from home to school every day on the stretch.
Fauzan Nadil Rakman and his friends, students of Tarbiyatu Islamic school in the neighbourhood, now trek for several minutes for classes after their school bus got damaged by the deplorable road.
Their teachers are not sparing them for their lateness.
“Because of the potholes, our school bus made unusual noise. We got stuck on the road some time ago. The bus’s engine got spoilt. The bus is now spoilt. Our teachers are always beating us for coming to school late. The place floods when it rains. So we always walk on the curb of the gutter to go to school,” he said.
The deplorable condition of the road is dangerous for the younger folks when the rains set in.
“The place floods when it rains. So we always walk on the curb of the gutter to go to school. It’s scary using it but we have no option than to walk on the gutter,” he noted.
Prominent along the stretch are construction equipment left deteriorating by contractors after they ceased operating on the road.
Portions of the open gutters constructed as part of the road project are also breaking down.
The bumpy nature of the road has since forced many drivers at the community’s taxi rank to drive through alternatively longer routes to the area.
“From here to Maase and it’s surrounding communities, the roads are very bad. We have to drive on the sides of the road. I have to service my car regularly. When it rains, we cannot use the road. Someone even had to grade the road. We are really suffering. We spend more than 45 minutes on the road,” one of the drivers said.
Petty traders and commercial drivers are suffering from the impacts of the road. They are calling on the authorities to fix the road.
Residents and road users of Kokoano are hoping the road situation does not escalate resulting in casualties before the government turns its eye to them.
