Residents of Daboya in the North Gonja District of the Savannah Region, have appealed to the Government of Ghana to complete the abandoned Daboya-Busunu road to enhance administrative and socio-economic activities in the area.
The road which links Busunu to Daboya the District capital through Lingbinsi, Disa, and Mankarigu is in a deplorable state, the situation residents say is affecting development in that part of the country.
According to the residents, life-threatening accidents have occurred on the road because of its deplorable nature and is fast becoming a death trap to drivers, passengers, and motorists.
They expressed the frustrations patients go through, especially heavily sick people and pregnant women when they are being transported to the Damongo Catholic hospital for medical attention.
Speaking in an interview with GhanaWeb, Mr. Yakubu Abdulai a native of Daboya said, "the bad nature of the road is derailing Agric and economic activities because it makes it difficult for farm produce to be transported to our preferred places including the Buipe and Damongo markets where we get good sales," he bemoaned.
He continued, "even if you succeed in transporting your farm produce to any of the markets outside Daboya, a chunk of your goods especially perishables will not be spared the brunt of the road."
Madam Salamatu also a resident of the town on her part bemoaned the health implications of the dusty and deplorable nature of the road and appealed to Government to consider completing the road which was abandoned in 2017.
"The nature of the road is worrying us, I feel pity anytime I see an asthmatic patient using the road because the dusty state of the road can worsen his or her condition. All we are asking for is Government's urgent response before the rainy season sets in to further make the road worse for us," she said.
Mr. Mohammed a commercial driver who plies the stretch on daily basis catalogued the negative impact of the road on his vehicle due to its poor nature.
According to him, he is always compelled to visit the magazine for maintenance after using the road and the cost involved in buying spare parts to service the vehicle is exuberant, a situation he describes as unbearable.
Mr. Lukman Alhassan a Kia Rhino driver described the poor nature as unfortunate and pathetic as some lives were lost in the past because of the poor state of the road which connects Daboya through Busunu to Damongo which is the Savannah Regional capital.
He revealed that his vehicle often suffers breakdowns while carting food items from Daboya and its surrounding communities to market centers.
According to him, the situation gets worse during rainy seasons as parts of the road sometimes get cut off.
He furthered that when the rainy season sets in, their vehicles sometimes get stuck in the middle of the road because of the unmotorable condition of the road making life unbearable for them.
He, therefore, appealed to the Government to cause the contractor who abandoned the road to come back to the site to complete the road to lessen the stress they go through in plying the road.
Background
The road was awarded on contract to Logistics Support Services, a company owned by Mr. Peter Mahama.
The (Daboya-Busunu) is a 53km road with the Ghana Highway Authority Tamale as Consultant and Ministry of Road and Highways as Client.
It was a 30-month contract period that commenced in January 2015 with physical progress of 64.68% from previous progress of 58.62% as of June 2017, the contract sum is Gh¢42,152,423.75.
But the contractor abandoned the project citing non-payment by both previous and present governments to be able to fully execute the 53km road project.
The abandoned Daboya-Busunu road