The District Chief Executive of Juaboso, Martha Kwayie Manu is promising to residents and traditional authorities that work on the Benchema-Osei Kojokrom road will resume by December 2019.
This promise is coming only after the youth of Juaboso district in the Western Region had demonstrated and given the government a one-month ultimatum to fix the road or face the consequences of them smuggling their cocoa beans to neighbouring Ivory Coast.
While burning tires to block the 77.2km road on Monday, the angry residents expressed disappointment in the government for consistently refusing to listen to their plight for a motorable road to transport their cocoa beans.
The road was part of the cocoa roads that were awarded on contract in 2015. However, work on the road stalled when the Akufo-Addo government breezed into office in 2017 and put a hold on the construction works for a mass audit of road contracts.
It has been three years since the stall and now the residents of the area say they cannot hold their patience anymore.
In June last year, the sector Minister, Kwesi Amoako Atta who joined the President on a tour in parts of the region raised hopes that the road would be fixed.
Till date, no one has been indicted in the much-taled-about audit and the road project abandoned as a result of the said audit had worsened. In April this year, Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta followed in July that the Consolidated Bank Ghana has released a total of GH¢530 million to COCOBOD for the construction of cocoa roads, yet residents along these cocoa roads have complained strongly because nothing was being done.