Encroachers disrupt Accra-Tema rail service

• Posted on January 8, 2019
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

The planned reintroduction of passenger rail services between Accra and Tema and Accra and Nsawam today, January 8, 2019, has been put on hold.
This is because of the persistent activities of encroachers and illegal occupants within the railway reservation.

Hawkers

The trespassers took advantage of the Christmas and New Year break and returned to the railway reservation (buffer zone), after they had been cleared off the rail lines about five times.

Some of the areas where people are living and trading very close to the railway lines and level crossings are Circle, Avenor, the Graphic Road, Achimota, the Nyaho Clinic area and Dzorwulu.

Ultimatum

Briefing the Daily Graphic after a tour of the tracks, the Minister of Railway Development, Mr Joe Ghartey, said officials of the Ghana Railway Company Limited (GRCL) had agreed to postpone the reintroduction of the service by two weeks to allow them to take steps to secure the railway track, the right of way and the railway reservation.

He said last Friday he was accompanied by the Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah; the Managing Director of the GRCL, John Essel and other officials on a test ride which revealed the obvious return of human activities to the railway line in earnest in the past few weeks.

“We realised that the encroachers were back, almost back onto the line, from Achimota to Tesano, Avenor, the Graphic Road, among other places,” he said, adding that human activities on the tracks were threatening the stability of the lines.

Mr Ghartey explained that when there is human movement on the tracks, “it destabilises the balance and makes the train unstable.”