Former President Jerry Rawlings is the latest to have added his voice to the deteriorating roads in the Volta Region, notably, the road leading to the capital, Ho.
While travelling to the Regional capital on Thursday, to commiserate with the family of Chairman of the National Democratic Congress there, Henry Ametefe, on the death of his wife, Mr. Rawlings stopped over at Sokode within the Ho municipality to express his disappointment over the state of the road in that part of the region.
He said he experienced a similar situation when he visited Hohoe a few weeks ago.
Residents and motorists in the Region have been impatient about what they say is the government’s delay in continuing road projects, which were abandoned after the New Patriotic Party (NPP) took up government.
Numerous road projects under the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration were put on hold by the current government, pending the results of audits to ascertain whether due processes were followed in the award of those contracts.
In addition, the government also stopped the construction of roads that were captured under the cocoa road programme across the country as part of a rationalisation exercise.
Some of the abandoned roads that have become a major concern to the people are Jasican-Kejebi, Nkwanta-Kpassa, Nkwanta–Dambai, Peki through Kpeve–Hohoe roads that form part of the Eastern Corridor Road Project.
Meanwhile, the government says works on roads in the Volta Region would be completed by the end of 2020.
“For the whole Eastern Corridor road we are doing, most parts of it will be done in 2020. A lot of the Eastern Corridor road passes through the Volta Region so you cannot talk about roads in 2020 without talking about the Volta Region,” the Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo, told Citi FM.