YAM GLUT, BUMPER HARVEST, POOR ROADS (1B, NOV 30, 2010)

LARGE quantities of yams have been locked up in communities located in the Eastern corridor of the Northern Region because the farmers are unable to transport them to Accra, Kumasi, Hohoe and Tamale due to the poor nature of the Yendi-Bimbilla-Hohoe road.
According to the farmers, the truck drivers have refused to ply the route, which is the shortest to the south, because on countless occasions, they had been compelled to offload the goods on the way and abandon the journey when their vehicles got stuck on the way.
The road, which was already in a state of disrepair, was worsened by the recent rains that led to the flooding of most portions of the road and, consequently, cutting off some of the communities located along the highway.
Vehicular movement on this route has since then been gravely hindered as gaping potholes and rocks have covered a large part of the road.
“We would not be able to sell our yams if the government does not do something about this road,” a farmer, Alhaji Abdul-Razak told the Daily Graphic in Bimbilla.
He said failure to sell the yams would lead to heavy losses and further aggravate their poverty situation.
Over the weekend, the farmers, together with other inhabitants of communities located along the Yendi-Bimbilla portion of the highway, staged a public protest to state their displeasure over the bad shape of the road, which is an important economic route for the nation.
With some of the placards reading “No roads, no vote” and “We too deserve good roads,” the residents threatened to boycott the 2012 general elections if the current government failed to rehabilitate the road.
In their petition to the president, which was signed by the Secretary of the Nanumba North district Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) Network, Mr Seidu Shani Mohammed, the residents said the poor nature of the road impacted negatively on their livelihoods, particularly in the transport of agricultural goods to market centres in the south.
“It is through this road that our hardworking farmers get their farm products transported to Accra through Hohoe, to Kumasi through Yeji and to Tamale and Bolgatanga through Yendi,” the petition read.
The inhabitants lamented over the failure of past governments to rehabilitate this road although they had promised to do so and urged the current administration to fulfil its pledge to repair the road.
In September this year, the President, Prof John Evans Atta Mills, on his return from Japan, announced that the Japanese government had pledged support for the construction of the Eastern corridor highway to link Hohoe in the Volta Region to Kulungugu in the Upper East region.
By this announcement, the farmers said their hopes had been raised and therefore used the protest to remind the government not to dash these renewed hopes as had been done in the past.
The Deputy Co-ordinating Director for the Nanumba North district assembly, Mr Seidu Abdul-Aziz, who received the petition, however assured the people of the government’s commitment to rehabilitate the road because it had been given a high priority.
He said information available indicated that efforts were underway to commence work on the project any time soon and therefore appealed to the inhabitants to exercise more patience.