Three people died on the spot at Eastern Quarry Junction, near the Military Training School at Shai Hills along the main Tema-Akosombo Highway, when an Urvan mini bus reportedly collided with a police staff vehicle, which had the Western Regional Police Commander on board.
The driver of a Nissan mini bus with registration number GR 5845 R, Charles Akwetey, 41, and his two relatives, Emmanuel Adzatey, 41 and Kwesi Nartey, 32 – all residents of Doryumu in the Greater Accra Region – being the only persons on board, died in the gory crash.
The bodies of the three deceased persons have since been deposited at the Tema General Hospital for autopsy.
Meanwhile, the police commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Akuriba Yaagy, who reportedly sustained injury on his forehead, and his driver are receiving treatment at the Police Hospital in Accra.
Eyewitnesses told DAILY GUIDE that at about 9:30 am on Monday, the two vehicles collided, making the commercial bus (Nissan) skid off the road and somersaulted into a nearby bush.
According to them, the vehicle carrying the police commander was coming from the Akosombo direction towards Tema while the mini bus was approaching from the opposite direction.
Driver of the bus was said to have attempted to swerve a pothole on his lane and moved into the lane of the police, causing his vehicle to ram into the police commander’s Nissan Patrol car with registration number GT 5845 V.
“I took the deceased persons in my car to the mortuary in Tema but we put the police commander and his driver in a different car and they chose to go to a different hospital,” an eyewitness asserted.
According to some angry residents who blocked the road, until owners of the quarries patched the large pothole on the junction which they said was created by trucks that came to the quarry sites to buy chippings and dust, they would prevent every vehicle from going and coming out of the mines.
They were of the view that owners of the quarries had paid no heed to the damage on the road at the junction, which had led to several accidents and loss of lives.
Benjamin Manyeh, Assembly Member for Kutuwe Electoral Area, in an interview with DAILY GUIDE at the scene, disclosed that several letters written to the managers of the quarries and the Ghana Highways Authority to patch the pothole yielded no result.
“We cannot continue to be losing nationals because of irresponsible behaviours of people who are in authority. All we are asking is for them to patch the pothole permanently and until that is done, we will block the access route for them to come out with a guideline to address the problem,” he threatened.
To ensure that sanity prevailed, the Afienya District police engaged managers of the mines, opinion leaders, the assembly member and residents in a dialogue for the way forward.
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