Congested roads and traffic has been one of the major headaches every Ghanaian for a very long time. They make road travelling a stressful experience, eat away a lot of valuable time and eventually decrease productivity. But for a country of our size – numerically, and geographically we shouldn’t be facing such issues – if we planned well.
Speaking of planning, railway systems have been touted to be the closest and best option we have to solving our road transportation problems. For one thing we don’t need to start creating railways right from scratch, we just have to renovate the ones that have been around from pre-independence – despite some been extremely dilapidated. It is in pursuit of this vision of fully functional railway systems once more that the Ghana Railway Authority has begun a demolition exercise in the Tesano vicinity in order to make way for its expansion of railways that pass through the Tesano community. The demolition exercise began on the 16th of July 2018.
The Ghana Railway Authority’s Deputy Managing Director, Engineering, Dr. Michael Adjei Anyentei mentioned that the demolition, despite its unpleasant nature had become “necessary” following the decision to implement the railway expansion initiative by the Authority. The expansion has become some sort of “necessary evil”. He stated that what the body was doing was
“…for the benefit of Ghana, not for a few… We have realised that the activities of these encroachers have affected the work of the authority in developing the railway line, especially at Tesano, and, so, we had to move them. Even recently, the train that derailed at Tesano, it was due to these same human activities along that stretch… Some of the encroachers have already left and others are still staying there, and, so, we are dealing with those who are still along the stretch”.
These statements were made when he was addressing the pressing issue of the increasing human activities on the railways, making it absolutely impossible for trains to still use these railways.
Despite the fact that the exercise would be great help to the nation in the long run, if managed and executed well, some people are paying a price for it – no matter how illegal their presence on these railways are. these people – encroachers as we may call them – are pleading with the authorities in charge of the Ghana Railways to give them some time to move from their present locations to another to avoid the possibility of losing their property and other valuables in the demolition process. some of these people spoke to media outlets, and these were their pleas
“We have nowhere to go at the moment, and, so, we plead with the government to come to our support….We are women and we know women play important roles in the country, and, so, please the government should be patient with us as we find new places to settle.”
