Tetteh Quarshie interchanges turns into a business centre

The Tetteh Quarshie interchange in Accra is gradually being turned into a beehive of business and human activity.

When a local radio station -Joy FM - team visited the interchange, yesterday morning, it found out that all kinds of business ventures were springing up in the interchange, which was constructed to ease up the morning and evening rush hour traffic at the end of the Accra- Tema Motorway.

Cars wheeze past on the highway that runs through the interchange at speeds that will crush any person to pulp.

Yet people risk their lives by crossing the highway in order to catch a taxi, buy a kente stole, check out furniture in carpentry shops or make a phone call from a mobile-to-mobile tabletop business, all in the interchange.

The interchange is littered with what you might call small-scale businesses owned by people trying to eke out a living by providing essential services at convenient spots.

They were driven off by city officials ahead of the interchange's construction and returned after the job was completed-almost.

Now they say the interchange's construction has almost caused the collapse of their businesses.

Taxi drivers yell out for passengers who have to get onto the highway and risk being knocked down by cars getting off the highway.

They face major competition getting passengers most of who would rather get on board what the drivers call Kufuor buses.

An assistant disciplinary counselor of the Tetteh Quarshie drivers union, Stephen Bosompim, told JOY News that business used to be very good until the Kufuor buses and the interchange came along.

Catching a bus or some other means of transport to and from work in Accra is torture.

So passengers will do anything to get transport, even if it means running across the highway after a bus of taxi.

Ironically, they complain about how difficult it is crossing the highway.

They told Joy news the highway should have road signs and traffic lights to speeding cars so they can cross.