Works on Adentan footbridges begins in a week

The Roads and Highways Ministry has disclosed that work on the six uncompleted pedestrian bridges on the Adentan-Madina highway, will commence within a week.

Temporarily, the Ministry, in collaboration with the Ministry for the Interior, has requested the Ghana Police Service to deploy officers of the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) to the populated areas along the highway to ensure safety of pedestrians.

A statement from the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Road Safety issued on Thursday night, said the government regrets the deaths of residents who had been killed by speeding vehicles on that stretch.

The statement further said work had already been ongoing in recent weeks to address the situation and that procurement processes were now near completion.

Contractors working on the project abandoned it as a result of failure by the Mills-Mahama administration to honour payments due them.

As part of efforts to renew work on the project, the Akufo-Addo administration settled 50% of the debt and has been working to get work resume in November 2018, according to the government.

Though official police records say twenty-four deaths and sixty-four injuries have been recorded on the stretch this year, media reports suggest almost two hundred 200 pedestrians have been killed in the past 10 years

Contractors handed over the project without completing the bridges.

The ministry says it is making frantic efforts to correct the situation and appealed to residents to assist in containing the situation.

The project commenced in July 2008 and was handed over in June 2018.

Drivers have been cautioned to observe speed limits while pedestrians have also been encouraged to use the signalised intersections as much as possible.