The Roads Minister, Kwesi Amoako-Atta, has described as “unreasonable” people demonstrating over bad roads while government is working earnestly to fix the road deficit.
According to him, it will be impossible for government to fix all deplorable roads simultaneously.
During his interaction with the media after inspecting the 31.7km Kwafokrom to Apedwa road in the Eastern Region, which forms part of the Accra-Kumasi dualisation project, the Minister expressed disappointment that some educated people join in demonstrations for their roads to be fixed.
In his view, “demonstrations do not build roads,” thus it is needless to engage in such methods to get government’s attention.
“It is unreasonable for anybody to say that all roads everywhere should be fixed simultaneously. So these demonstrations should stop.
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“Sometimes you get people who are supposed to know better, well-educated people who should advise their colleagues joining demonstrations,” he retorted.
Demonstrations since time immemorial have been the populace’s means to communicate to governments about their displeasure over certain actions and inactions of the government.
Thus, residents of communities protesting to draw government’s attention to their deplorable roads is not new.
Mostly, these marches force governments to give updates on their work so far, and local assemblies have their attention drawn for action to be taken after such incidents.
The Police have sometimes arrested some persons in the course of demonstrations when they turn violent or engage in illegal activities such as burning of tyres.
Meanwhile, Mr Amoako-Atta divulged that the contractors of the Kwafokrom to Apedwa road have been tasked to expedite work for the project to be commissioned by the end of 2021.
“I have charged the contractors to ensure that they complete the stretch of the road covering a distance of 31km by the end of the year. Furthermore, I have asked them to introduce night work to compensate for any delay,” he said.