The District Chief Executive [DCE] for Assin South District Assembly in the central region Hon Derek Owusu Ambrose has called on the Ghana Highway Authority as a matter of urgency to come and construct Speed ramps on the highway anywhere necessary in other to reduce the rate of accident on the road especially in the Assin South District.
Hon. Owusu’s comment comes after an Articulator truck with the registration number AS 8123-16 loaded with 850 bags of cement ran over six students of Assin Atobease Primary School killing five[5] on the spot in the hour of 1400 yesterday.
According to the Assin South District Education Director Mr Stephen Abanfo who was an eyewitness narrated that, he was in the office when he heard a crazy sound on the road, so he rushed out only to see an articulator truck loaded with cement had a break of metal joints after the truck ran over a ramp forcing the vehicle to veer off the road and ran over the students, six student have been rushed to hospital and I don’t even think one will survive’ he added.
Hon Derek Owusu Ambrose said , MMDCEs in the central region were having at meeting at Anomabo when he heard the distressed call from the Assin South Education Director that there has been an accident on the road. Am even shocked at the speed that a fully loaded cement truck could go despite climbing a hill, He said, he has written to the Ghana Highway Authority several times to aid them with a speed ramps but to no avail, some of the communities are left with no other option than to erect an illegal ramps on the highway though it’s out of others of the Ghana Highway authority. We are pleading with the highways to immediately come to our aid because we don’t want to see such incidents again.
The Assin South Police Commander DSP Okyere Andam who was also at the scene confirmed to the media that, the Articulator truck was travelling from Takoradi to Kumasi but had a mechanical fault at Assin Atobease leading to the accident, the victims who are all female students of Assin Atobease Primary 5 and 6 respectively have been rushed to Abura Dunkwa Government Hospital Morgue for autopsy.
Some of the angry residents of Assin Atobease and Kyekyewere attributed the high rate of accident to lack of speed ramps on the highway. we have plan to erect the speed ramps on our own, if the highway authority fails to answer to our grievances we will block the road just like what happened on the Adenta-Medina highway.
Source: Linford Odoomprince