ROAD CONDITIONS IN GHANA

                              video of  dirty and dusty road. Video credit: Owusu-Ansah Bridgette.

An exposed road during the rainy season. picture credit: Owusu-Ansah Bridgette

       
     
             Driving in Ghana can be a very enjoyable experience in some parts of the world but it can be a death trap in some nations. Ghana for one seems to be an example of the latter nations. One of the first spectacles that strikes any visitor to Ghana is the condition of the roads and heavy traffic especially in Accra. The main roads connecting the many other cities to Accra and circles such as the Nkrumah, J.B Danquah, Obetsebi-Lamptey and Ako-Adjei circles are in fairly good condition. However as soon as one turns from these main highways into the residential areas such as East and North Legon and Cantoments, one is greeted with a few good roads and many others with potholes several feet wide and deep even in these high income areas.

            On the other hand, in places such as Dansoman, Madina, Adenta and Ofankor, this is a nightmare. During the rainy season especially during the latter part of June, drivers are faced with the problem of not knowing how deep these potholes on roads now filled with water are. Drivers just hope that the pools of water in the roadways are not too deep to swallow their vehicles and as such throw caution to the winds and just drive through.
        
           The use of gravel then comes as a solution to help cover up potholes and also to surface new roads.This however leads to flying gravel stones smashing windscreens of oncoming vehicles and thus needs to be seriously considered. For a country that does not manufacture vehicles of any kind but rather has to rely on importation of both vehicles  and vehicle parts, the economic impact of broken vehicle parts is an enormous one.

A dusty and  exposed road. Picture credit: Owusu-Ansah Bridgette

          Another consequence of the road condition described above is that dust is blown into the air by vehicles using these exposed roads which have not been surfaced. This in turn may lead to the outbreak of asthmatic conditions in people and other respiratory diseases. This consequence is also contributed to by smoke emissions from the many vehicles plying the city roads.There are apparently no laws regulating vehicle emissions in the country and if there are, there is no enforcement of these laws.

An exposed road with potholes filled with water. Picture credit: Owusu-Ansah Bridgette.

           In other words not only is the economy hurting from these conditions but the health of the population is also at risk. As if the never ending condition of roads in Ghana is not bad enough, there does not seem to be any kind of traffic management in most places.Many of the road intersections, be they T- or four-road junctions or approaches to the circles, do not have traffic signals or traffic officers managing them. The result is lots of yelling, horn honking, no vehicles moving, and precious time lost.I believe that these conditions described above did not emerge just yesterday. The attitude unfortunately seems to be that this is how things are and have been and therefore they are acceptable. It is not acceptable and government should be held responsible.