Death trap in Ho: Non-functioning KK-House traffic lights killing Ho indigenes – Sitsofe Vuvor Writes

The Ho Municipal Assembly (HMA) has got it’s challenges as far as road traffic is concerned, however, the most precarious and dangerous one is the non-functioning KK-House traffic lights in the Ho township.

Earlier this month there was a near fatal motor traffic accident at KK-House,close to Stanbic Bank involving myself and a friend which nearly claimed 5 lives.

The spot where the accident happened is a major four-junction intersection, Popularly known as KK-House with nonfunctioning traffic lights to control the heavy vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The area is full of human activities with lots of businesses on both sides of the road.

It is sad to note that for several months now the Ghana Highway Authority has blatantly refused to fix the nonfunctioning traffic lights at this major intersection, while rampant motor traffic accidents keep on occurring at the spot.

Apart from the above mentioned intersection, other very important and busy intersections like the Dome junction,CK-Road Market Junction among others are without traffic lights.All the other traffic lights within the Ho township are not even reliable.

The traffic lights at Ola and Civic Centre have never functioned for more than a month continuously since they were installed years ago and these road intersections are always busy with both human and motor traffic.

The Volta Regional Directorate of the Ghana Highways Authority and Urban Roads keep looking on sheepishly whilst innocent lives are being lost and people are being maimed through motor traffic accidents without making any effort to install traffic lights where they’re needed and at the same time refusing to ensure that the existing ones in the township are working.

All efforts made by Assembly members in the area to draw the attention of officials of Ghana Highways Authority and Urban Roads have fallen on deaf ears.

Do we need 100 years Chinese loan before installing traffic lights and also ensuring that existing ones are operational?

Again it is disheartening to always put the blame on politicians when something goes bad in the state of affairs when public and civil servants who are paid to perform their duties fail to do so.

With popular journalists, Fred Duhoe, Elvis Bomasah among others, agitating on their social media platforms, for the KK-House traffic lights to be fixed, very soon residents of Ho will match to the offices of the Volta Regional Directorates of the Ghana Highways Authority and Urban Roads to keep the officers assigned to install and maintain traffic lights on their toes.

We are fed up with the lackadaisical attitude and lack of sense of duty exhibited by officers of government agencies who are being paid with the taxpayers’ money. At the end of the month they don’t refuse to go to the bank to cash their salaries, but when it comes to the performance of the duties as public and civil servants, they sleep on the job.

Enough is enough. The traffic lights in the Ho township, especially the KK-House traffic lights must be in perfect working order, and also there must be traffic lights installed at other equally important interchanges in the Ho township as soon as possible.

We don’t want to make reference to what happened on the Adentan-Medina Highway in Accra but when our patience grows pale…
A word to a wise is enough.

STORY BY: Sitsofe Vuvor