Residents of Samsam Odumase near Amasaman in the Greater Accra Region have blocked the Samsam Fotobi road to prevent tipper truck drivers from plying it.
The residents are protesting the deteriorating road condition, which they attribute to the heavy loads carried by these tipper trucks.
About 10 tipper drivers have been stranded on the road, forcing them to use other alternative routes.
One resident told Citi News, “We are stopping these people. They are destroying our roads and we don’t want that. The taxi drivers in the community are unable to work. We’ve been calling them to have discussions on the road and look at ways to fix it but nothing happens so we want to do something that will affect them.”
Another resident indicated that the MCE has visited their area multiple times yet no action has been taken to improve the road. “Therefore we are taking this action to send a clear message to the authorities.”
Meanwhile, one of the affected drivers has urged the residents to demand accountability from the local assembly. He opined that they (drivers) pay a levy for each trip, for which reason they should not be blamed for the poor state of the road.
“The road is very very bad. The contractor or government has to fix it and the government is taking money from us. We pay council tickets, GH30 per trip.
“So we the drivers are paying our quarter just to fix the roads for the people. So we don’t know why they don’t do it…So we are not here to destroy the road.”