Over twenty communities in the Central Gonja District of the Northern Region have made an urgent appeal to the government to rehabilitate the broken down Kpinjipe bridge which links them to other neighbouring districts and the regional capital, Tamale.
Some of the communities affected include Kpinjipe, Gbenja, Jukuku, Wuripekura, Bomahinaakuraa, Dioma, Kulfo, Chama, Tuluwe, Adape, Fiita-Kura and Kulfobilla.
The bridge collapsed about six months ago, when it could not withstand the weight of an articulator truck which was hired by the Catholic Church to carry over 600 bags of cement to be used for the provision of educational infrastructure in the area.
The people in the communities said with the collapse of the bridge they could no longer carry out trading activities with the neighbouring villages, especially the regional capital Tamale on which they depended largely for salt and other commodities.
They also complained that when their pregnant women were in labour and had complications it was difficult transporting them to the nearest hospital.
The people made the appeal when Mr Issifu Salisu Be-awuribe, the District Chief Executive of Central Gonja, led a team of newsmen on Sunday
to Kpinjipe to inspect the broken down bridge and to reassure them that government was in the process of working on it.
Mr Zakaria Yussif, an opinion leader of the Kpinjipe community, said if the bridge was not rehabilitated before the rains set in students
attending secondary schools in the district capitals may not be able to attend school as vehicles cannot cross the bridge to pick them.
He said in the eventuality of any disaster, people in the communities could not be reached to provide any relief items and appealed to the
government to come to their aid.
Engineers from the Feeder Roads Department have estimated that it would require more than GHc1.2 million to rehabilitate the bridge.