The Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Atta, has announced that work on the three remaining footbridges on the Madina-Adenta highway will be completed at the end of the month.
Two more have been completed bringing to three the number of the bridges completed and used by the public.
The footbridges at the Ritz junction, the Seven Day Adventist junction, and the West African Senior High (WASS) have been completed, while those at the Madina Zongo junction, the Redco Flats area and the Atomic junction are yet to be completed, due to the delay in the relocation of utility facilities.
This came to light when Mr Amoako-Atta inspected work on the remaining footbridges.
He said though the three footbridges were behind schedule they would be completed by the end of the month and opened to the public.
The minister who expressed satisfaction at the quality of work stated that the landscaping and the paving, which were not part of the original contract would be done by the contractors, while lights would be provided along the entire stretch of the footbridges to ensure the safety of users.
He urged the public to use the facility rather than putting their lives in danger by crossing the road, which had claimed many lives.
Mr Amoako-Atta charged the assemblies to enforce their bye-laws and stop advertisers from defacing the footbridges, and hinted that laws would soon be promulgated to make the defacing of public monuments a crime.
Work on the abandoned footbridges was re-awarded in November last year, following violent demonstrations by Adenta residents, after more than 24 deaths and 64 injuries were recorded on the road.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when a female student of WASS died on the spot when she was knocked down and killed by a taxi cab in front of the school.
The spontaneous reaction from the residence compelled government to award the project to six new contractors to ensure early completion and save motorists and pedestrians from further agony.
Each contractor was given April 30 as the deadline, but investigations conducted by Ghanaian Times revealed that some of the contractors faced serious challenges with the relocation of major utility lines along their areas of operation and were not able to meet the deadline.
BY LAWRENCE VOMAFA-AKPALU