X’mas Shopping Hits Kumasi 

Traffic on a road in Kumasi Central

 

Massive vehicular traffic is being experienced on the roads of Kumasi, especially the Central Business District (CBD) of Adum and the nearby areas.
A trip through Kumasi Central, which ideally should last 10 minutes, now takes at least one hour or even more to the chagrin of drivers.
This development is causing unpleasant experiences for both commercial and private drivers, who are certainly enduring difficult times now.
Checks by the DAILY GUIDE revealed that the Christmas season, which is some few days away, is the cause of the sudden massive vehicular traffic.
According to some residents, who spoke to the paper on Monday, the upcoming Yuletide has resulted in people trooping to the city to shop.
They said usually people from other parts of the country visit Kumasi for Christmas shopping from December 20, but there is a change this year.
“This year, the Christmas shopping started from the first week of December, and that has caused the massive vehicular traffic,” Eric Opoku told the paper.
Opoku, who resides in Kumasi, said the traffic is so massive that private car owners now visit the city with commercial vehicles.
Nana Achiaa, a resident of Ridge in Kumasi, on her part, bemoaned the massive traffic on the roads of the city lately, saying “the cars cannot move”.

She, therefore, appealed to the city authorities to come up with a strategy to help reduce the vehicular traffic, so that people could move freely and shop.
Meanwhile, the DAILY GUIDE also gathered that pickpockets also operate in large numbers in the city centre during the Christmas season, posing as if they are also shopping.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi