But for the huge investment in a multi-purpose educational, religious and recreational project Royal House Chapel is embarking upon at Agortor, the area would have been even more miserable than it is now, Nene Teye Kwesi Kwetey II, Chief of Agortor, has told the Accra File.
Agortor lies in a low Savannah belt and is one of the most deprived farming communities, with dire infrastructure needs, in the Shai-Osudoku District of the Greater Accra Region. The people mostly rare sheep and cattle and grow crops, especially pepper.
Agortor has hamlets, and the commonest and fastest means of transportation from Tsopoli, a town after the Saglemi Affordable Housing from the West along the Tema-Aflao highway, to Agortor and its hamlets is by motorbike. The roads are also dusty and hardly motorable when it rains.
The town has only two public schools -Primary and Junior High- and one beautifully built health center, where bats have virtually succeeded in making the place uncomfortable and inhabitable for the few health personnel, who have therefore deserted the facility. What is more, the health center has become a haven for wild reptiles, as it is overgrown with weeds, with its doors and windows destroyed.
The sick or residents who need health care, based on this, travel long distances on their bad dusty or muddy roads to Akuse, Ashaiman, Prampram or Tema to be attended to.
Access to potable is another challenge to Agortor and its hamlets, which are not far from the lower Volta Basin. In view of this, the residents contribute some money for tractor operators or pick up vehicle drivers who travel to Tsopoli to fill water tanks for domestic use.
Residents who are unable to raise some money to get potable water supplied to them from Tsopoli have the option of collecting and storing rain water, or depend on water from a dam, which is for irrigation purposes and shared with animals.
Indeed, the people of Agortor and its hamlets struggle to make ends meet.
All these huge physical development challenges notwithstanding, Royal House Chapel’s huge capital investment at Agortor is gradually opening up the area.
The church has acquired a large tract of land on lease for a multi-purpose educational and religious infrastructure, an investment, the Chief of Agortor told Accra File, is contributing to the gradual development of his community.
Nene Kwetey II said the church sinks huge funds into the leveling of the road when resources are available to it.
“During such times, vehicles are able to move to and fro easily,” he noted.
The previous government began bitumen road construction works from Agortor to Tsopoli Nyigbenya, but Nene Kwetey II said the project had halted since the government was changed.
“We didn’t benefit from the government’s three months free water, because we often hired vehicles to buy water for us from Tsopoli. But for Royal House Chapel’s investment here, I don’t know?” Nene Kwetey II bemoaned.
“Political figures, including past and present DCEs, don’t visit us, but we vote. We are only recognised by our paramountcy. You have come to see Agortor, and we pray that The Chronicle, through Accra File, will let Ghana hear our cry.
“Our lands are fertile for agriculture and our people are ready to lease lands for projects that will create decent employment for my people. Our lands are not for outright sale… but we are ready to lease them,” Nene Teye Kwetey II explained.
Agortor and its hamlets have benefitted from successive governments’ rural electrification projects and so, there is hardly a mud house that is not connected to the national grid, and so the rural folks are current with news in the country.
Aside a few homes that own one or two television sets, most of the youth of Agortor and its hamlets own smart phones so they are abreast with Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Perhaps, with these gadgets, they entertain themselves despite the sorry narrative of Agortor.
The post Agortor: Greater Accra Region’s miserable community appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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