The Municipal Chief Executive Officer of the Akuapim South Municipal Assembly, Frank Aidoo, has denied reports that parts of the Aburi Mountain fell off on Wednesday, July 5, 2023.
Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb on Friday, July 5, 2023, the MCE explained that the incident that happened was the rain washing of debris from ongoing road construction on top of one of the hills along the Ayi Mensah - Peduase stretch.
“It is all over the news that (parts of) the Aburi Hills are falling onto the road but on this particular day what we all witnessed wasn’t the stones or the hills falling onto the road. What happened was that there is a road being built at the top of that community.
“When you are claiming there is a whole community on top of that hill. Now that road has been awarded on contract and the contractor is working. So, he brought up some materials to fill the road, when it rained and because of the nature of the land, the runoff pulled all the material right on top of the road and pushed it onto the main road.
“And you would be able to verify what I am saying by looking at the type of rock that we have on the Aburi Mountain and the material that fell onto the road on the 5th of this month, you would realise that there are two different materials,” he narrated.
Frank Aidoo added that officials from the Ghana Highway Authority, including the Chief Executive Officer, Christian Nti, as well as himself and engineers of the assembly went to the scene of the incident and they realised that debris on the road was not from the mountain.
He insisted that even though parts of the mountain have peeled off in the past, the incident that happened on Wednesday was different.
He also refuted assertions that parts of the mountain were falling off because of the increase in the construction of buildings on top of the hills saying, “We have a lot of uncompleted projects dotted around the hills… it is not like the owners don’t have money to complete it is because they have been stopped by the assembly. So, we are not allowing construction to go on over there”.
He added that the structural integrity of the hills at Aburi is intact and that the public should not entertain any fears of the rocks on them falling off to cause harm.
A team from GhanaWeb visited the scene of the incident to verify the reports of the rockfall and the statement of the Akuapim South MCE.
The team found some persons, supposed to be officials of the Ghana High Way Authority, collecting the debris that had eroded some parts of the road.
The debris where mostly made up of sand particles and small stones. Even though there were huge rocks on the side of the road, the officials indicated that they were not from the incident that happened on Wednesday.
Some of the drivers who spoke to GhanaWeb indicated that incident seldom happens but urged authorities to put measures in place to ensure that rocks from the hill don’t cause major accidents in the future.
“My name is Fii. I’m a driver under the GPRTU at the Akuapim Station. The rocks really disturb us. Three days ago, some rocks eroded to some parts of the road and it caused some traffic on the road.
This does not happen often; It mostly happens after it rains heavily. But we pray that they would find a solution to this,” one of the drivers said.
“I ply this road a lot and the way the rocks fall on the road, it is really worrying. They have to find a solution to this because one day, it can cause a serious accident. This happens after heavy rains but sometimes it happens even when there is no rain,” another driver said.
The incident reportedly caused significant obstructions for vehicle movement on the Aburi road between Ayi Mensah and Peduase.
Watch GhanaWeb’s report from the scene of the incident below:
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