Fundraising manager at the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), Michael Boadi, has criticized roads minister, Kwasi Amoako-Atta, over what he described as the minister’s lamenting the constant presence of articulated trucks parked indiscriminately at sections of the Tema Harbour to Akosombo Highway.
According to him, it is within the rights of the roads minister to see to the handling of such matters, as it falls within his ministry. He revealed that the minister must utilize all resources available to him to ensure sanity within the ministry.
“If he has identified persons who are corrupt in his ministry, he must report them. Failure to do so is a total betrayal of the state – in itself, it’s complicity of the crime that is being perpetrated against the state. So, we beg him, he should stop lamenting, he should just do the right thing. He should report them, have them investigated and prosecuted so that it would serve as a lesson.”
Michael Boadi
Furthermore, Mr Boadi indicated that Mr Amoako-Atta must equally provide evidence that he is committed to helping the country develop. With this, he stated that the roads minister has “talked too much in this country, it’s about time to act”.
“The talking has been too much. If he thinks that he has evidence that the police and the customs are engaged in these corrupt practices, then he is in the position to engage their superiors and then the necessary action is taken.
“He has the competence, know-how, resource and capacity to even cause an investigation so that we can identify the culprits and then have them prosecuted… If it’s all about just complaining that we elected them to steer the affairs of this country, then we can all run the country.”
Michael Boadi
Violation of axle load regime
During an inspection tour of the ongoing VALCO roundabout to Kpone road reconstruction project, Mr Amoako-Atta stated that the presence of the loaded trucks with cargo beyond the acceptable weight levels, along the shoulders of the highway between Tema Harbour Roundabout and the newly constructed Tema Motorway Interchange, has destroyed the road.
In light of this, he highlighted that drastic steps would be taken to tackle the problem.
Mr Amoako-Atta lamented that while government continues to invest huge monies to fix the roads, transporters from other countries who had come to convey cargo from the port were not adhering to the axle load regime.
Also, he revealed that apart from the dead weight of the parked trucks which causes road degeneration, some of the vehicles were usually repaired on the road, further resulting in the spilling of petroleum products on the highway. He explained that such petroleum products causes materials used to construct the highway to disintegrate fast, thereby damaging the highway.
Furthermore, Mr Amoako-Atta accused some of the staff responsible for the various axle load checkpoints along the major roads and some security agencies at the various checkpoints, of condoning the overloading of these trucks which poses risks to the safety of highways and road users.
Addressing the situation, he noted that the ministry would have a meeting with the Ministry of Transport, the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority and the Ghana Police Service to address the challenge.
Meanwhile, some of the haulage drivers have appealed to authorities to assist them by creating parks where they can park vehicles while awaiting documentation processes after loading cargo from the port.
The risky manner in which articulated trucks have been parked along some major streets in the Tema Metropolis has become a source of concern for road users. These haulage trucks previously parked near the Tema Toll Plaza of the Motorway, however, prior to this year’s Independence Day celebration in March, the Greater Accra Regional Minister in a special Operation Keep your Frontage campaign, ejected the truck operators.
