The Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Atta, has directed engineers to pull down the wall of a plush building at Adjiringanor, Accra, to pave the way for the construction of the East Legon-Adjiringanor bypass.
According to him, the wall, which finds itself on the road reservation, has stalled the progress of the road construction. It is among structures, some of which have been built on wetlands (ramsar sites), targeted for demolition.
Mr. Amoako-Atta, who led a team of officials of the ministry to inspect some ongoing road construction projects in Accra and Tema on Tuesday, warned private developers and individuals that all structures erected within road reservations would be cleared.
“I am told the owner of this building is reasonable. No problem, I appreciate that. But because we want to work with speed, raze this wall down as quickly as practicable so that the contractor can get the right of way to work,” the minister insisted.
“I want to use this opportunity to advise all Ghanaians, particularly within the cities and even on the highways that, anybody who enters into the road reservation, with the highest respect, we will not have time for you.
“We won’t wait for anybody because we are working with speed and everybody should advise himself or herself so far as the road reservation of this country is concerned. We shall stop the indiscipline of some individuals in our country,” he added.
Some of the road projects inspected were the La Beach Completion Road spanning from the Independence Square to Tema, Nanakrom-School Junction dualisation road, Adjiringanor-East Legon road, and bridge construction at Community 12 among others.
The La Beach road project involves a dualisation of the road with construction of bridges, culverts, traffic signals on the 14.8 kilometre lot-one section and a three-tier interchange at Kpone barrier on the 7-kilometre lot-two part of the road.
Ing. Akua Sakyibea, Transport Planner at the Department of Urban Roads, told the minister that 10% of the physical work had been completed, while Resident Engineer, Bonne Acquah, said the exploration work on the 3-tier interchange being undertaken by Chinese contractor MBEC had begun.
The Nanakrom-School Junction road improvement project involves the construction of storm bridges and dualisation of the road to prevent the perennial flooding in the area, while the Czec modular steel bridges for Community 12 at Klagon are expected to reduce the volume of traffic from Tema to Ashaiman underpass.
Mr. Amoako-Atta expressed satisfaction at the quality and pace of work at the various places, and appealed to the contractors to work in the night to complete the projects on schedule.
The minister was accompanied by the Chief Director of the Roads and Highways Ministry, Ing. Edmond Offei Annoh; Director of Monitoring and Valuation, Rosby Kome-Mensah; Director of Urban Roads, Alhaji Abass; and Director of Feeder Roads, Bernard Badu.
By Ernest Kofi Adu