From Ernest Best Anane
Residents of Foase in the Atwima Kwanwoma District are crying over the poor nature of their roads.
Mr. Christian Acheampong, Unit Committee Chairman at Foase, the district capital, who raised the concerns of the residents at a press conference, indicated that the poor road infrastructures was getting from bad to worse with time.
According to him, the poor condition of the road network had resulted in the withdrawal of services of some commercial vehicles from certain roads by their owners.
He said the Metro Mass Transit buses, which used to provide services from Kumasi to Winiso and beyond to transport passengers and food items from the District to Kumasi, have been withdrawn, affecting the economic development of the area.
He indicated that parents who travel from Kumasi to Trabuom to take their children or wards to Afia Kobi Ampem Gils Senior High School, the only well-endowed girl’s high school in the district, are worried about the nature of the road network, and threatening to withdraw their wards from the school.
Mr. Acheampong also complained that the lives of patients and pregnant women in labour who are referred from the Foase and Trabuom health centers are endangered when being conveyed on such roads to Kumasi.
The Unit Committee Chairman also lamented on the lack of infrastructure to the District administration.
According to him, since the Atwima Kwanwoma District Assembly was inaugurated in February 2008, at Foase as the capital, the Assembly had not put up a central administrative block to provide office accommodation for the various departments and units as pertains in other District Assemblies, even though the Chief of Foase had released vast land for development.
He said, currently, the Assembly was operating in temporary offices with inadequate office accommodation for all its departments, with most of the principal officers staying outside Foase and having to commute to and fro on a daily basis.
The Committee Chairman disclosed that three bungalows built by the assembly on the said land are covered with weeds and now at the mercy of the weather.
Mr. Acheampong feared the buildings might deteriorate and collapse if attention is not given to them.