Year after year the government has looked on for the total deterioration of the Kejebril- Benso Road. This road is used to facilitate the quick transportation of semi finished goods from the Benso Oil pal plantation (BOPP) to the clients in Tema, but today the road has become a major headache to the company almost drowning their operations.
The entire stretch of the road is full of gullies and what one could describe as ‘mini-dams’. There is no better portion on the entire stretch of the road. It is a muddy road with several of the drains under construction from Kejebril to Mpohor being uncompleted.
Along the stretch, one will come up to portions that have huge stone base that have been used to control the muddied sections, making it a bit difficult or salon cars to use.
According to some residents who spoke to JoyNews, cars get stuck on portions of the road almost every day. The experience on the road is not pretty for anybody, especially for strangers to the road.
The experience is no different to the long trucks that transport Benso Oil Palm Plantation’s product to Tema.
“For the past two weeks we’ve not sent even a drop of our CPO to our refinery in Tema we had about 12 tankers parked here in our yard as we speak just waiting for an improvement in the condition of the road. We tried one this afternoon and the result has not been quite encouraging,” Kwesi Baah Ofori, BOPP’s Estate and Plantation Manager told JoyNews.
A hundred metres distance could take about 3 minutes with trucks wobbling on the deteriorated road. Kwesi Baah Ofori says the current state of the road has dire consequences on the operations of the company.
According to him, the condition of the road has made it impossible for them to transport their product to their refinery in Tema.
He is predicting that if their tanks become full, and they cannot continue with production, they will have to shut down their production.
“And mind you this plantations employs over 2000 employees and they are all accommodated on this site, they all live in the plantation’s estate. So the impact is quite dire, and we are talking about over 1000 farmers who supply our mill. Once the mill is full of CPO, we would not be able to keep up with the production and all these farmers would virtually be impacted,” he explained.
BOPP is not the only one feeling the pinch. Residents of the areas also feel the pain of bumping gullies. A kia driver who gave his name as Alfred has been driving in this road for 2 years. We met him repairing his broken down vehicle along the road.
“This road doesn’t help us at all; we suffer a lot on it. When you work for 3 days you would have to take everything you got to do maintenance. So are we progressing or retrogressing? This road is terrible; it is not helping us at all,” he said, worryingly.
Alfred says the regular breakdowns leave holes in his finances with clients refusing to pay more for transportation due to the current economic squeeze. The driving business is no longer more lucrative. He says the situation has a telling impact on the residents.
“As soon as it rains, taxis take 30 cedis meanwhile if the road was good I am not sure they would even charge 10 cedis. Residents here who don’t have cars suffer. So imagine what would happen if there is someone who needs urgent medical attention. We plead with government to come and construct this road for us,” he said.
Several of the trucks that loads BOPP’s semi finished products to their clients in Tema have been grounded in the company for weeks because of the poor nature of the road. One the drivers, Abdullah Morro is frustrated.
“We spend too much time when we come here because of the poor nature of the road, and it often rains in this place too. If the company grader doesn’t pull you from this place to Kejebril for you to continue you can’t go even with that, we still suffer,” he explained.
To him this situation is affecting the finance of the drivers.
“It is only when you able to transport the product to Tema that you get your bonus. If you are not able to go you can’t get it. So it affects our finances,” he stressed.
The Estate/Plantation Manager of the BOPP, Kwasi Baah Ofori says the nature of the road is having a telling impact on their contributions to the local economy.
“We are quite a big company; we are making a lot of impact in the lives of the communities within which we operate – just last year, we bought palm fruits to the tune of over 40 million Ghana cedis from farmers; this year up to September, we’ve bought over 62 million Ghana cedis. That is the kind of amount of money we are pouring into the communities.
“And once our product are not able to go to its final destination, eventually we cannot also continue buying from the farmers and you know the farmers would eventually suffer loses,” Mr Baah Ofori explained.
He is calling on government to expedite construction of the road to enhance the operations of the company which will in turn enhance the growth of the local economy of the area.
“We know that the government is challenged with a lot of road network that it has to do, and it is doing its best, but we think that looking at the economic potential of this company in this district, it would be good if they come in to help,” he said.
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