The Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Akwasi Amoako Atta has ordered that the four ‘problematic’ roundabouts located on the Kumasi-Ejisu stretch of the main Kumasi-Accra highway should be removed for the free flow of traffic.
The Minister has consequently asked that traffic lights should rather be installed at the locations.
Mr Amoako Atta gave the directive on the first leg of a three-day working visit to the Ashanti Region.
The roundabouts are part of a design for the GHS394 billion Danish government-funded reconstruction of the 46-kilometre Kumasi-Konongo Road Project in 2004.
Contrary to expert claim they are for safety purposes, the structures have become a major cause of heavy vehicular traffic and road crashes.
At least, two accidents, especially, involving cargo trucks occur around one roundabout or the other each week.
The Ghana Highway Authority has turned deaf ears to persistent appeal from motorists and commuters to clear them.
During the re-construction of the road in 2004, the now Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Kwabena Owusu Aduomi who was then the Ashanti Regional Highways Director mounted a strong defence for the design and insisted that was a better option for safety even though he could not provide a justification why a similar design had not been implemented at the Nsawam-Ofankor section of the same highway in Accra.
Mr. Amoako Atta, who led a team of engineers to inspect the road, concluded the round-abouts have outlived their usefulness.
“Engineering review has proven that we can remove them. There couldn’t be any appropriate occasion to give that directive than now. I am therefore directing my Chief Director and all directors of agencies that within the next two months, before the end of the year, all these four roundabouts should be removed and the road straightened up and the entire stretch asphalted,” Mr Amoako Atta revealed.
He is hopeful when removed, it will give new a relief to motorists and commuters.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Simon Osei-Mensah, expressed excitement about the development.
“We will have a smooth flow of traffic from now and we are very grateful to them. We are very happy that today, this problem by the end of the year is going to be the thing of the past,” says Mr. Osei-Mensah
