Minister held hostage by angry residents over deplorable roads

Angry residents of Tarkwa Nsuem Municipality of the Western Region have held the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Kweku Asoma-Cheremeh and his entourage hostage.

The ugly scenes follow a protest by residents over the deplorable state of their roads as mining companies have refused to honour their corporate social responsibility despite using heaving equipment to ply the roads.

MyNewsGh.com Western Regional correspondent disclosed that the Minister who is on a working visit to the area arrived on Tuesday night and lodged at Anglo Gold Ashanti Iduapriem Rest House only to wake up on Wednesday morning to be greeted with the noise of rampaging residents.

According to our reporter, they burnt tyres and barricaded the road leading to the hotel in which the Minister and his entourage lodged preventing them vehicles from either leaving or coming in.

In the ensuing melee, they were seen burning lorry tyres, clad in red armbands and chanting war songs to register their displeasure in government’s indifferent attitude towards their plight.

It took the armed security personnel several hours to calm down the agitated residents before the minister could move out but even as they drove away, the residents hooted at them.

The leader of the demonstrators told this portal that they will continue to mount pressure on the government to get the roads in the area tarred or the stop the mining companies from extracting minerals from the municipality.

Source: mynewsgh.com