One million motor vehicles on Ghana's roads

Available statistics indicate that the number of vehicles including commercial and private ones which ply the country's roads have shot up considerably over the last seven years.

Currently, about one million vehicles are reported to be plying the roads of the country, and this, when compared with the one hundred thousand cars which were plying the roads before the New Patriotic Party (NPP) assumed office in 2001, is a sizeable increase.

Hon. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Deputy Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, who made the disclosure when he paid a familiarization visit to the Kumasi Kejetia Bus Terminal recently, expressed alarm at the rate at which vehicles plying the roads in the country had increased within a short time, attributing the heavy vehicular traffic on the roads to the new trend.

He therefore, as a matter of urgency, called for an immediate and effective long-term measure from those in authority to curtail the vehicular problems on the roads, stressing that that was the only way to ease the traffic problems on the roads.

Hon. Jumah noted that the vehicular traffic problem in the country needed serious attention, and proposed the construction of double-decker bus terminals.

He as well advised the citizenry to be circumspect with how they use lands, warning that the rate at which the population and vehicles were increasing, if not critically checked, could create massive population problems for the country in the near future.

He commended management of Freko FD Ltd, contracted by government about five years ago to manage the Kumasi Kejetia Bus Terminal, saying, "You have done marvelously well; keep it up.

"You have kept the surroundings of Kejetia and beyond clean at all times since you were contracted to manage the facility by government."

However, Hon. Jumah, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Asokwa Constituency in the Ashanti Region, was quick to warn those who are indiscriminately building houses at Kejetia to cease from the act, hinting that those houses would be demolished to make way for expansion works at the lorry park in future.

He charged the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) to implement up-to-date mechanisms to generate adequate internal funds to run the city, lamenting that the assembly's annual budget of GH¢1,600,000 was too meager.

The Minister entreated the KMA and other stakeholders in the region to join forces with Freko FD Limited to keep the metropolis clean, insisting that keeping the environment clean was the duty of every citizen.

In her address, Mrs. Freda Darko, Managing Director of Freko FD Limited noted that her outfit, since assumption of duty in 2002, had employed 250 workers, adding that the effectiveness of Freko FD Limited had ensured "security and maintained a congenial environment at the terminal".

She noted that in line with the company's vision to provide international security standards at the terminal, Freko FD Ltd had engaged the services of a CCTV consultant from the UK to undertake a feasibility study for the installation of CCTV at the terminal.

When the CCTV is installed, Mrs. Freda stated that it would help in crime detection and prevention and as well help combat criminal activities at the terminal.

The Freko FD Managing Director, touching on measures adopted to improve upon sanitary conditions at the terminal, said "100 pieces of dustbins have been acquired for waste disposal".

She expressed gross worry about constant assaults on her workers by the people, resistance of hawkers and the littering at the terminal, which complicate the work of her outfit, and called for a stop to those habits.

Mrs. Darko appealed to government, stakeholders and the general public to assist the company in its quest to make Kejetia terminal the best in the country.