Social commentator, Sydney Casely Hayford has admonished the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to desist ‘dodging’ their failures and shifting blames on the ruling government for problems they left unsolved.
Speaking on the back of recent deaths on the Madina-Adentan road on Citi TV’s Big Issue, Mr. Hayford said it was completely wrong for members of the NDC to try to justify their negligence and inability to build footbridges during their 8 year term in government. Moreso with the excuse that they did their part and the rest falls on the ruling government to do.
For him, it only shows that the previous administration is shedding responsibility and ‘hiding’ behind the constitution and it’s laid down procedures to run away from fault.
‘You have a government, you are in power for 8 years, you started a road, you built it, there are bridges that you didn’t complete for 8 years now when somebody comes to mention it then you are up in arms saying they are responsible for it because they have been in power for 2 years. It is such a wrong way to argue the whole thing and it is running away from responsibility”. “Your responsibility of being in government for 8 years when your job was to fix those bridges during those 8 years and you didn’t do it.
“We have to stop running away from things that we are hiding under the umbrella of the constitution that the constitution says there must be consistency in project development and all that therefore if I didn’t finish what I was supposed to do, somebody else must come and carry on. They are going to finish these bridges in 6 months. They could do it in 6 months and you couldn’t do it in 8 years? From the time you started the road up until now? In other countries, we do not have overhead bridges”, he quizzed.
The absence of functional footbridges on the N4 highway has sparked massive anger and debate especially in recent times when deaths have been recorded within a short period.
Whiles many have blamed the NDC administration for failing to include the footbridges in their infrastructural plans during the 8-year period, others are angry at the ruling NPP’s failure to address the persistent calls of the people by completing the footbridges.
Things went out of hand when residents embarked on violent protests on the stretch after an 18-year-old student was knocked and killed by a taxi driver on the highway on Thursday.
The first-year West African Secondary School (WASS) student was on her way to school when the unfortunate incident occurred sparking the riots that left motorist in traffic for hours.
Police put the death toll on the highway, this year alone, at 24 with 164 injuries.
Many months of protests by the residents for streetlights, road signs and the footbridges to be completed in order to save lives were ignored by government but the death of the female student was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
The residents in anger blocked the highway and burnt tyres to register their displeasure at the unnecessary deaths on the road.
Meanwhile, Government has revealed six contracts have been awarded to different companies to fast-track the construction of some six uncompleted footbridges on the N4 highway, streetlights have also been fixed and orders have been made for road markings and road signs to be fixed.
