Eastern Corridor Commercial Drivers Threaten Strike

Commercial vehicle drivers along the Eastern Corridor Highway in the Volta Region have threatened to park their vehicles should government fail to expedite action on completion of construction work on the road.

“The nature of the road is terrible. We are suffering too much and have agreed not to ply the road in protest if the situation does not change within the coming months,” Mr Tobalo Zeze, Station Officer at the Kadjebi branch of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview.

Mr Zeze said commercial drivers in other towns along the route such as Jasikan and Hohoe had expressed similar displeasure, and appealed to the Government to consider the plight of drivers and the people.

The Kadjebi to Golokwati stretch of the road has developed enormous ditches and potholes, with the road being virtually un-motorable for low axle vehicles during rainy seasons.

Mr Abdul Karim, a driver at the branch, told the GNA during a tour of the route that the 40 minutes-drive from Kadjebi to Hohoe had been extended to over two hours, prompting increase in fares.

Some passengers complained that travelling on the corridor, through potholes always left them with bodily pains, apart from the long delays.

Others were of the view that the road situation was accounting for migration from the area, and also a contributory factor to increasing food prices.

The US$290.64million Eastern Corridor Road Project covering a distance of about 695 kilometres, and linking a couple of regions is financed by the Brazilian Development Bank, the Government of Ghana (GOG), and the Cocoa Roads Project.

Designated N2 of the National Road Network, the project is a South to North road, which starts from the Tema Motorway and ends at Kulungugu on the country’s border with Burkina Faso.

It is 965 kilometres long and traverses the Greater Accra, Eastern, Volta, Northern and Upper East Regions.

There are eight on-going projects under the Eastern Corridor Project, namely; the Asikuma Junction -Have (45 km), Have- Hohoe (30 km), Have Hohoe (31.3 km), Hohoe Jasikan (30 km), Dodo Pepesu- Nkwanta (46.4 km), Nkwanta Oti Damanko (50 km), Nkwanta Oti Damanko (12 km) and Oti Damanko -Gbintri (209km).

The road project commenced in November 2011 and expected to be completed in November 2013 but completion date was extended to March 2017, with work still at almost 36 per cent completion.

Source: GNA