CHIEF OF NKRANKWANTA APPEALS TO PREZ (PAGE 13, OCT 27, 2010)

THE Chief of Nkrankwanta, Nana Kwabena Asemia II, and some residents of the town, a predominantly cocoa and foodstuffs growing area in the Dormaa municipality of the Brong Ahafo Region, have passionately appealed to President J.E.A. Mills to, as a matter of urgency, fulfil his 2008 campaign promise to them.
According to them, during the 2008 campaign, President Mills gave the assurance that when he was voted into political office, he would ensure the immediate construction of the deteriorated road from Asikasu to Nkrankwanta and Nkrankwanta to Krakrom.
Nana Asemia, who is also the Dormaa Ankobea Dompimhene, noted that passenger vehicles of all types from Kumasi, Japekrom, Berekum, Drobo, Wamfie, Dormaa and other places, plied that western corridor to do business while heavy duty trucks came in to transport several tons of cocoa, logs of timber, food crops and crates of eggs to their various destinations.
He, however, pointed out that the people had become so disappointed and disillusioned that they would feel reluctant and apathetic to listen to politicians who might come to the area to solicit their votes, come the 2012 national elections.
‘‘This road is very important to us but looking at the extent of deterioration, it appears we are not part of Ghana but this area is known to produce the bulk of the nation’s cocoa and foodstuffs of all kinds to feed our people. If our road is not put in good shape, I do not think the politicians can come here to campaign during the 2012 general elections,” the chief declared.
The Dormaa Ankobea Dompimhene disclosed to journalists who had inspected the extent of the deplorable nature of the road that armed robbers had struck a number of times on the Ayum Forest Reserve section of the road, where the road is terribly bad and devoid of cell phone services, and, therefore, succeeded in making away with money and other valuable items from their victims during such attacks.
Mr Hayford Sakyi Bediako, the Nkrankwanta Cocoa District Manager of the Produce Buying Company (PBC), in another interview with newsmen, also expressed regrets that such a prolific cocoa growing area should suffer a deplorable road network while the people lived in fear and panic because of armed robbers and other social miscreants.
He disclosed that his station, together with other Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs) of cocoa, purchased a total of 4,566.24tons of cocoa beans (73,060 bags) last year, adding, however, that the heavy duty vehicles which cart the cocoa unnecessarily break down or fall off due to the bad state of the road.
According to Mr Bediako, the Nkrankwanta Cocoa District was one of those areas that had the highest freight in the country and also transported the beans straight away to the Tema Port for export to Japan, which buys the beans from Ghana and so, ‘‘we are appealing to the government to immediately put the road in a best shape.”
Mr Noah Afari, popularly called Agya Noah and resident of Krakrom, expressed disagreement with the fact that the road from Krakrom and beyond was a feeder road and, therefore, pleaded that the stretch be tarred to encourage the people to continue to produce more cocoa and food crops to benefit the generality of Ghanaians.
He insisted that Krakrom was just a few kilometres from Nkrankwanta, and that the tarring of the Nkrankwanta township road should necessarily be extended to Krakrom to boost the morale of residents in their farming and other business enterprises.
The Assistant Manager of the Nkrankwanta Area Rural Bank, Mr Matthew Amankrah, for his part, pointed out that the security of customers of the bank, including the numerous farmers whose Akuafo cheques are honoured at the facility, was at risk, adding that some of its customers come from Accra to do business in the town and return, in the face of the deplorable nature of the road.
According to Mr Amankrah, barely one-and-a- half years after the bank started operations, a brand new Toyota van was suffering some defects, stressing that the bank was the only one that was serving the vast majority of the people in the area who are prone to attacks by thieves and armed robbers.
Mr Alex Ameyaw, the District Commander of Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), said he had been using the scanty imprest to assist in the patching of some dangerous portions of the road to make it possible for vehicles to come in for assessment, a decision that had yielded dividend.
He intimated that it was this initiative that had helped the station in meeting its targets since he assumed control of the area in 2008, adding that ‘‘we are on the road every other day to do some patches and fill manholes, and any time it threatens to rain no vehicle will move because it risks getting stuck or falling off.”
A trader at Nkrankwanta, Mr James Yeboah, said he had twice encountered armed robbers, together with other travellers on the forest section of the road and robbed of substantial amount of money and other items.