SCORES of youths living along the Night Market Electoral Area in the Ashaiman municipality on Tuesday blocked the road for several hours to vent their anger on the contractor and assembly for the slow pace of work on the dusty stretch of the road.
They chanted war songs as they directed motorists to take alternative routes, daring any �stubborn� driver to disregard their order.
At a point, the youth were joined in their action by business groups, food vendors and persons who owned shops along the dusty stretch.
Hajia Adams, a shop owner in the area, said the dusty nature of the road was making her goods unattractive to customers and that day in day out she was losing all her customers.
She said she has had to employ the services of some ladies to clean her goods and mop the floor intermittently, all in a bid to give her goods some attractiveness so people would patronise her shop.
She asked: �But for how long can I continue doing this? How much sales do I make in a day to continue to support such an exercise? Why must I go through this ordeal because of someone�s inability to do what is expected of him?�
Solomon Nii Armah, another protester, wondered why the contractor had not been able to complete that small stretch for almost two years now.
�When he moved to site and scraped the remaining bitumen on our road, our hopes were that within a year he would complete the work, but here we are two years on battling with thick dust 24 hours on daily basis. What crime have we committed to be punished like this?�
But while they were at it, a few police personnel were dispatched to the scene to persuade the agitated youths to remove the barricades to allow free vehicular movement on the stretch. And even though they complied, it was only after they had warned the contractor and the assembly to address the situation as soon as practicable or face �severer agitation the next time around�.
Coincidentally, while the youths were agitating on the road, assembly members, the chief executive, Mr Numo Addinortey Addison, the area�s Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Alfred Agbesi, and other opinion leaders were locked up in a crisis meeting to find solution to recent rumpus centred on the performance of the Co-ordinating Director, Mr Kofi Adjei Baffour.
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