Roads should be free from flooding – Minister
The Minister of Roads and Highways has charged road contractors to ensure that they deliver quality work to prevent flooding of the roads after rainfall as it is happening in many parts of Accra.
Mr. Kwesi Amoako Atta, speaking in earnest, says, “I have asked MPS to ensure that they don’t repeat what is happening in other places, that after construction the place is flooded. I do not want to see this kind of thing here again.”
Mr. Amoako Atta was inspecting the Tema Community Three Beach Road Junction reconstruction by the Meridian Ports Services Limited (MPS), to assess work done so far.
He cited the flooding of the Legon and Kwame Nkrumah interchange roads as some of burdens on society, saying, “It is sad that after such major road constructions, the place still gets flooded during rains.”
He admonished MPS to do a good job even though the project was their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to the Tema Community.
The Minister saluted MPS for the work they were doing, observing that “in their services to the country, MPS meet deadlines, yet they don’t sacrifice quality.”
In that regard, Mr. Amoako Attah cited the prompt and quality work MPS did at the Tema Motorway roundabout where they opened up the road “bottle neck” and created more access routes around it to ease off traffic.
He also told of plans by his ministry, MPS and other stake holders to link the Community Three road to the Motorway Roundabout through the Hospital road, “And I believe before the year runs out, we would cut sod for that to continue.”
Mr. Amoako Atta asked MPS to ensure that they developed the Community Three Beach Road junction in such a way that it “would not encourage anybody to put up structures here, particularly containers. I believe this place would be treated as a security zone because of the port.”
The Head of Legal, MPS, Mr. Frank Ebo Brown, addressing the flooding situation in Accra, observed the damaging role littering in the communities played in urban flooding.
As such Mr. Brown said, “The most important thing was that the contractors had covered the drains; they’ve built the kind of receptacle that would separate garbage from the water so that clean water flows into the sea.”
He asked that a lot of education went on for people to stop littering around which choked the gutters and caused flooding. because, “We find a lot of plastic wastes in the sea, where do they come from?”
He informed of MPS’s bid to green the construction area by planting trees, indicating that they had already planted 500 coconut trees with 500 more in the works.
The $9 million concrete-road-project, when completed, is expected to ease off transport difficulties at the Beach Road junction which is the second major road connecting the Port City to Accra and beyond.
The project consists of the creation of a roundabout and four new slip roads within each quadrant of the roundabout to reduce the number of vehicles approaching the roundabout, and the upgraded access and egress lanes to the north, east and westerly approaches.
It would also create new access at-grade railway cross to the new port.
Source: GNA