A GHC600, 000.00 steel bridge constructed on the Tano River at Baffokrom in the Tano North Municipality of the Ahafo Region has been inaugurated to facilitate the movement of the people and services.
Major construction work on the project, which started last year December, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) gathered, was in fulfilment of a campaign promise made by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during the 2016 electioneering.
The GNA learnt that former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s government constructed the old wooden bridge in 2001, and since then no rehabilitation work was done on it.
In view of that, the more than 7,000 settlers in farming communities such as Mankranho, Kootwi, Sukuumu, Adu Kwasi and Krofrom were cut off from each other in the rainy season.
The Ministry of Roads and Highways collaborated with the Ghana Highways Maintenance Unit to construct the 25-metre stretch bridge across the Tano River which linked Baffokrom and Chiraa in the Sunyani West District.
According to Mr. James Oppong, the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regional Manager of Feeder Roads, the bridge could last for more than 100 years. He said contract was awarded and construction work on the main road in the area would begin as soon as possible.
Mr. Oppong expressed appreciation to Mrs. Freda Prempeh, the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Tano North Constituency for her support towards the execution and completion of the project and urged residents in the area to show gratitude to the MP.
He said the government awarded contract on most of the feeder roads in the three regions, which would be executed this year.
Inaugurating the project, Mrs. Prempeh, also the Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, thanked the people for their cooperation and commended the government for the project.
She noted the Tano North constituency benefited from infrastructural development under President Akufo-Addo’s government and called on the people to appreciate that by voting for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to retain power in the 2020 elections.
Mrs. Prempeh indicated that the health, education and water sectors improved considerably, saying more deprived communities were connected to the national electricity grid.
To improve on potable water supply, the MP said she constructed 60 boreholes, and work on 40 additional ones would be completed by the close of the year.
“2020 is a year of prosperity”, she said, and advised the people to shun government detractors and embrace and support President Akufo-Addo’s social intervention programmes to see remarkable improvement in their socio-economic livelihoods.
While assuring their support to the government, Nana Baffo II, the Chief of Baffokrom appealed to the MP to provide the Baffokrom local M/A Primary School with computers and teachers’ quarters (residential accommodation).
He thanked the MP for mechanising the borehole in the community, and expressed the hope that construction work on the Sukuumu-Mankraho-Baffokrom road would commence as soon as possible.