Residents of Akuse in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region on Monday, September 26, blocked the main road from Akuse Junction to Akuse township, Asutsuary to Osuwem, and other communities in protest of the deplorable state of roads.
The protest disrupted traffic on the stretch with the protesters mounting barriers and leaving commuters stranded.
As a result, the day-to-day activities of the Akuse Government Hospital were affected in the process due to the unavailability of commercial vehicles and road blocks.
According to the protestors, cladded in red and black, the gulley road networks existing in the area for decades are negatively affecting the local economy and driving business downwards.
The aggrieved residents said they have severally petitioned authorities to consider reshaping the various roads, but nothing has been done hence their decision to embark on the demonstration to express their displeasure.
Speaking to Angelonline.com.gh, some of the protestors expressed their frustration over the development and noted that commuters struggle to ply the road during raining season.
“The way and manner Akuse have become is very worrying because the community is full of potholes, whenever it rains, we can’t find our way out. We have Volta River Authority (VRA), we have prisons, banks, hospitals, other institutions and equally important bodies in the area, but our roads are bad,” Ali Dogbe, a resident and protestor said.
A female protestor added that “Our roads in Akuse are not good at all, so either the DCE or the MP should come and fix it for us, we plead with them because before man and God we are suffering” she told our reporter Opambour Jaman Dehyia.
She warned that should government fail to attend to their plight, [residents of Akuse] will boycott the 2024 general elections because the successive governments of the two biggest political parties [NPP, NDC] in the country have neglected them.
The demonstration has affected the day-to-day activities of the Akuse hospital where patients and staff are not getting vehicles to the hospital.
They are, therefore, appealing to the government to fix the bad roads in the Akuse vicinity because they cannot endure the suffering the long existence of poor road networks is bringing to them.
Meanwhile at the time of filing this report, by the intervention of security personnel in the area the agitated protestors were calmed and road blocks were cleared for easy passage of vehicles.
