Bad road network threatens revenue target …at Kunlungu border

From William N-lanjerborr Jalulah, Kunlungungu

If immediate steps are not taken to fix the Missiga-Kunlungu road in the Bawku Municipality of the Upper East Region, officials of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority at the Kulungungu border would not achieve their revenue target for the year 2012.

Following recent heavy rainfall in the Upper East Region, most of the un-tarred roads, including the stretch of the Missiga-Kunlungu trunk road leading into Burkina Faso, have deteriorated, leading to several trucks getting stranded after one of them got stuck near Kunlungu about a week ago.

As a result, many transit cargo trucks that should have used that route had to use alternative or unapproved routes to get to Ghana due to the inability of them to use the Missiga-Kulungungu road to Burkina-Faso.

In an interview with journalists at the border on Saturday, a Senior Collector at the Ghana Revenue Authority, Customs Division, Mr. Stephen Borbor, said for almost two weeks now, trucks from Burkina-Faso, Niger and Mali with goods had not been able to use the road under reference, and that they were parked behind the Kulungungu border.

Meanwhile, information available to The Chronicle indicates that before the road was deteriorated, cargo trucks from Mali, Niger and Burkina-Faso with onions and other food items paid GH¢35 to the local assembly.

The assembly is, therefore, losing all this revenue, and the collectors are worried they would not meet their target for this year.

At the time this reporter visited the place on Saturday, about 30 cargo trucks in transit to Burkina-Faso, Mali and Niger, and those from the above countries coming into Ghana, were stranded because some of them were stuck in the mud, and had blocked the road.

In their bid to salvage their goods, some owners resorted to unloading them into donkey carts and carting them away either to the Kunlungungu or Bawku townships, depending on the proximity, thus denying the local assembly the opportunity to collect their levies on such goods.

In a brief interview, the Municipal Chief Executive of Bawku, Mr. Musah Abdulai, confirmed that the bad nature of the road was affecting revenue generation.

He was, however, quick to add that the road had been awarded to a new contractor. This contractor was seen on site at the time visit.

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