Member of Parliament for Bantama Constituency in the Ashanti Region, Francis Asenso-Boakye has announced that the Atafoa Owabi bridge will soon be reconstructed to save users of the Kumasi-Barekese road the usual flooding during heavy downpours.
People who use the Kumasi-Barekese road have for several years suffered difficulty to cross the bridge over the Owabi River whenever there is heavy rainfall, due to serious flooding of that portion of the road. Drivers, passengers and pedestrians who have to cross the bridge to be able to get to their homes have always slept out of home since it is not possible to move through the flood to the either ends of the road.
Early this year, the MP for Bantama and Minister for Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye sent hydrological engineers from his ministry to extensively dredge the Owabi River. This exercise was aimed at preventing the flooding.
But continuous dumping of refuse, including used refrigerators and woods into the river, has been causing the flooding again since the rains set in this year.
Mr. Asenso-Boakye and engineers from the Ashanti Regional Offices of the Ghana Highways Authority and the Urban Roads Department, have today, 11th October, 2022, toured the Owabi bridge to ascertain the best option to take to permanently solve the flooding challenge at that stretch of the Kumasi-Barekese road.
Speaking in an interview with press during the tour, Francis Asenso-Boakye noted that after consultations done so far, the best solution to stop the flooding, is to reconstruct the bridge over the Atafoa portion of the Owabi River. He disclosed that efforts on getting the bridge constructed, is far advanced, adding that very soon, works would start and the ordeal the people have suffered over the years would be no more.
After visiting and assessing the Atafoa Owabi Bridge, the Bantama MP and Minister of Works and Housing with the team of engineers toured the Atafoa-Ohwim road where countless number of potholes have developed. He also inspected ongoing road construction works on the Bohyen Bronikrom road.
The Minister indicated that he is lobbying seriously to get the road linking Bohyen to Barekese rehabilitated. He charged the Regional Highways Director to quickly work on filling the potholes on the road as a temporal means of ensuring some level of comfort on the road.
He however, urged the users of the Atafoa-Barekese road to brace themselves up for some inconveniences when the construction of the bridge starts.
The Ashanti Regional Director of Ghana Highways Authority, Ing. Frederick Aduagyei disclosed that his outfit has done all the assessment on the Owabi bridge, and that report on the assessment would be ready in a week’s time, to pave way for the next stage of efforts towards the reconstruction of the bridge to start.
