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If someone is going down the wrong road he does not need motivation to speed up. What he needs is education to turn him around. Jim Rohn
One of the common spectacles in Kumasi is pockets of policemen on road traffic duty along familiar routes around the city. Despite the abundance of police presence along certain routes, they are conspicuously absent at busy intersections and motorists are left to their fate, caught in tangles of traffic jams.
However, majority of our drivers fear the police and their presence ensures the smooth flow of traffic. Apart from a few intersections such as KTI and Asawase, where one is likely to benefit from the presence of the police in ensuring smooth and orderly traffic flow, at busy areas such as the Airport Roundabout, one hardly observes the presence of the police in conducting traffic. Yet, as one moves along on the Buokrom- Antoa Road, one is likely to encounter groups of police personnel supposedly on road traffic duty.
A friend who is used to the presence of police personnel at many intersections in Accra last week went to Kumasi and called to ask me whether there is any unit of the Police Motor Traffic and Transport Department in Kumasi. He was, particularly, baffled that there was no police on duty at the Suame Roundabout, although the police station is just adjacent to that busy intersection, where sometimes one has to be extra brave before one could drive around.
The friend equally observed that he saw about four police personnel sitting under a tree, a little detached from the Labour Roundabout and asked whether they were there to help drivers or to wait and see how many of the drivers would flout road traffic rules to attract their ire and possibly compensation.
Well, I want to openly find out and establish whether the Police Command in Kumasi has banned the presence of police personnel at busy traffic intersections and whether personnel of the police MTTD are only allowed to check the documents of motorists. Definitely I have seen MTTD units at a number of police stations, including Zongo and Asokwa. It thus means there are MTTD units in Kumasi but why personnel are not seen at busy intersections might well be that their priorities are not intersections and the ease of movement but to check who has the requisite documents.
It must be pointed out clearly to the Ashanti Regional Police Command that it is imperative that personnel of the MTTD do not only go on road checks but they must equally be deployed to man traffic intersections to ensure the comfort and convenience of motorists. They must work as hard and as diffused as their counterparts in Accra, who are seen at busy intersections all over the city.
On the other hand, if it is not the duty of the police to provide direction at traffic intersections and that it is the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly which has the obligation, then the KMA?must ensure it is done. At least, in Accra, we see more of police involvement in conducting road traffic duties than City Guards.
Commander One Kofi Boakye has made an image for himself since he was posted to Kumasi to head the Ashanti Region. He might be more focussed about fighting crime, but he must concentrate on road traffic jams since that could in other ways facilitate crime. He must, together with the regional commander of the MTTD, ensure that some of the many police personnel who are deployed along most of the roads within and around the city are tasked with the management of vehicular movement at major intersections and along the routes with heavy populations of vehicles.
Motorists in Kumasi are equal to those elsewhere in the country. Therefore, they must not be subjected to needless neglect by personnel of the Ghana Police Service in Kumasi, especially so when commercial drivers in Kumasi have gained notoriety of wanting to get onto the road first, the phenomenon of “mena me sii mu kanee”, to wit I was the first to have got unto the road, irrespective of the direction from where they are coming from. Indeed, in Kumasi, the principle about roundabouts as to give way to traffic on your left has no meaning.
Kumasi does not have as many traffic lights as in Accra. Sometimes, the traffic jams are worse at intersections with traffic lights in Kumasi. Therefore, even as we ask drivers to be disciplined, we appeal for personnel of the MTTD to be present at all major intersections in Kumasi and in the major towns along the Accra-Kumasi road such as Konongo and Ejisu to ease traffic flow and make travelling to and around Kumasi pleasant and pleasurable. Over to you Kumasi police.