Jasikan-Hohoe residents and motorists are threatening to hit the streets if government fails to fulfill its financial obligations to contractors of the Eastern Corridor road.

They want Messrs Rolider to be brought back on site to resume work in earnest as the road keeps deteriorating.

The Jasikan-Hohoe stretch of the Eastern Corridor Road in the Volta region has developed huge potholes which residents refer to as ponds after the construction firm abandoned the project in March 2017.

The project was a ¢72.23 million 20 kilometers contract awarded to Messrs Rolider in 2015.

The contract sum was later increased to ¢112.89 million after a 10 kilometers variation was added to it extending the project to end at Jasikan with completion time extended to December 2017.

However, with the project stalling, residents say the deplorable state of the 30 kilometers stretch is of great worry to them.

According to them, they are unable to ply the stretch due to the huge potholes on the road and its bumpy nature.

Most commercial drivers on the Hohoe-Jasikan road have now diverted their route through Lolobi-Teteman-Bodada to avoid the stress of traveling on the Eastern Corridor road and risk getting stuck in the mud.

"We have to divert through Bodada to Hohoe and fro and increase our fares to ¢10.00.

“Instead of traveling the stretch for 30 minutes, we spend about two hours on the road due to its deplorable state. We always suffer body pains after traveling the stretch," a driver told Joy News’ Fred Quame Asare.

The high transport fares coupled with the depleting state of the road got youth in the area infuriated hence decided to embark on a massive demonstration, but had to call it off in the eleventh hour due to intervention from some government officials.

An opinion leader in Jasikan, Asafoatse Amankwa Boateng, who spearheaded the supposed demonstration was bitter on the state of the road which he said, "had contributed to the upsurge of armed robbery incidents in the area."

"The road which has developed ponds was awarded under Cocobod, but we will appreciate it if it can be allocated to another source of funding", he added.

Nevertheless, the Jasikan District Chief Executive, Lawrence Aziale, indicated that although Cocobod is cash trapped, it had promised to make funds available for Rolider to resume work on the road.

"Once the engineers are ready with their report on the assessment of work done so far on the road, about 30% of the fund will be released to the contractor for him to resume work on the road before the end of the month", he assured.

He, however added that “government is considering another source of funding for the project since the contract is too huge for Cocobod to finance.”