EXTEND TAKORADI AIRPORT RUNWAY (PAGE 25)

The Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the Ghana Police Service need to check the activities of truck drivers in the twin-city of Sekondi/Takoradi to ensure their compliance with road safety regulations.
The indiscipline on the part of the drivers, coupled with their impatience on the roads, make the roads unsafe in the metropolis.
When the trucks break down the drivers and mechanics place warning signals, mostly tree branches and triangles, and begin to repair them right in the middle of the road.
Many months after the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan authorities relocated the trucks to a park at Apowa in the Ahanta West District, partly because of the Ghana 2008 tournament, and as result of a series of publications on the reckless parking of vehicles in some strategic places in the metropolis, many of them have returned to parking in the metropolis.
Some of the haulage truck drivers are gradually resuming the use of the shoulders of the roads as parking lots. The worst culprits are those still using the road from the Port roundabout to Harbour View area.
They park on both sides of the filling station, popularly known as Axim-Road Shell Station, and in front of KQ Spot, a popular bar in Takoradi, for several days.
Interestingly, the cocoa belongs to a cocoa licensed buying company that has a mini warehouse behind the fuel station, and most of the time the haulage trucks of the company’s drivers obstruct the flow of traffic when turning to enter the premises of the warehouse.
When the trucks arrive in the metropolis and it is not their turn to offload the cocoa they park on the shoulders of the road in front of the fuel station.
Any visitor to the metropolis who is confronted with the traffic congestion should not conclude that there is traffic in Takoradi. It is either that there is repair works taking place on a haulage truck in the middle of the road, a church holding traffic for their members to cross, or commercial drivers using the lay-bys as loading bays.
When contacted, the Western Regional Commander of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of Police, Assistant Superintendent of Police Adusa Poku, said the problem could largely be attributed to the absence of towing trucks for such heavy duty trucks.
“I have received a lot of complaints from members of the public; the least we can do is to provide some form of support until the mechanics finish repairing the vehicles and move them away,” he said.
For those who have resumed parking on the shoulders of the roads, the MTTC commander said it was a serious problem the unit was trying to deal with.
He warned that the unit would act swiftly to stop the practice.