Work to repair roads that got damaged by floods in the Upper West region last week has begun in earnest, the Roads Ministry has said.

Eight out of 11 communities were totally cut off after the rains, making movement impossible.

The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) could not send relief items to those affected as there was no access.

Perhaps, the worse out of this devastating situation was when transport operators increased fares due to the deplorable routes they had to use to get passengers to their destinations.

A visit by the transport minister Kwesi Amoako Atta saw a promise to immediately fix the roads “what has happened is unfortunately particularly the road infrastructure, but everybody should know that what has been destroyed is not beyond human solution."

Two weeks on, the Deputy Roads and Highways Minister, Stephen Jalula, said, “the technical people in the ministry and contractors have met on the matter, and it came out that ¢50 million will be needed to fix the roads.

"The contractors, about four or five of them, who are already in the vicinity of the Upper West Region are going to do that."

When asked if the money was readily available for work to begin, Mr Jalula replied, “this is an emergency problem, and we cannot wait for money, and I think that we have the money.”

During his 'Thank You Tour' of the region, former President John Mahama, who inspected the extent of damage, said, “I do not know if the President is receiving the proper security report, but it is a very serious situation, and I think the President should take action."

He went ahead to suggest, “if we can get the 48 engineers regiment to come in with some emergency to open up the roads quickly, it will be good.’’

When this suggestion was put to Mr Stephen Jalula, he said, “the contractors that we have tasked to do this work are supposed to take all remedial actions to make the roads motorable, and it all boils down to getting the roads fixed as soon as possible so I think they should do the work.’’