Hon. Saeed Muhazu Jibril, the newly appointed Regional Minister for Savannah Region, yesterday, March 18, 2021, made a timely intervention by resolving an impasse between cargo truck drivers and staff of the Sawla Axle Weighing station who were accused of extortion by the cargo truck drivers.
Speaking on Yagbon Radio morning show”Tea Cup” on the matter the District Chief Executive for the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District, Hon. Lawal Tamimu, said the cargo truck drivers, accused the officers in charge of the Axle Weighing station of extortion due to an adjustment of their weighing scale.
According to Hon. Lawal when management of the Axle Weighing from Wa and Kumasi came to examine the weighing scale and it was evident that the weighing scale has been tampered with hence giving the drivers different weights of their loaded trucks as compared to other places.
Hon. Lawal added that, the cargo truck drivers also accused the officials at the station of favouring drivers coming from Burkina faso as they collect money from them and not allowed to go through the process of Weighing their loaded trucks, which they said contravenes the directives.
“Staff at the Axle Weighing station however, denied all the allegations as the they also explained that, a loaded truck that runs into the scale will obtain a different weight from a loaded truck that moves slowly onto the Weighing scale”, Hon Lawal told host Abdul Fataw.
The Regional Minister and authorities who were invited from Wa and Kumasi instructed the officials at the Axle Weighing station to calibrate their system to match that of Tema.
The intervention by the Regional Minister and the other invited authorities calmed the situation down and the drivers finally agreed to access the Axle Weighing scale which paved way for the over hundred loaded trucks that were held hostage.
The axle load of a vehicle is the total weight exerted on the roadway for all wheels connected to a given axle.
The DCE also seized the opportunity to caution drivers plying the Kumasi- Wa highway to be much careful on the road to avoid the high spate of road accidents as eight people, are reported dead in a gory accident in the outskirts of Sawla,on March 18, 2021.
Some 22 others are also in critical condition after the Wa-Kumasi bound Sprinter Benz bus with registration number AS 3022-15 somersaulted and crashed into a nearby bush.
Source: yagbonradioonline
