A tragic car accident that occurred around Kensere Road, a community in the Asutifi South district of the Ahafo Region, has claimed three lives .
The incident, according reports gathered by Republic Online revealed that, the accident happened between the hours of 5 and 6am on Wednesday morning , April 9.
Eye witnesses explained that a sand-carrying vehicle(BA-1906-21) crashed into a faulty timber car on the road, leading to three lives lost and one person in critical condition.
The driver, according to his ID card, is from Berekum in the Bono region. There were four people in the car. A reporter’s account indicated that the driver and the woman, identified as the car owner’s daughter, were trapped in the car. It took over an hour to remove their dead bodies from the car.
Forestry Commissioner Agyeman Sylvester Popularly known as Sly, Said the rate at which timber cars are causing accidents at night and dawn is alarming. He explained that there are laws that regulate all timber cars, which all drivers must abide by, but because most of them engage in illegal logging, they try to go against the law.
Commissioner Sly noted that about 95% of timber operators who carry logs at night are illegal operators who have no necessary documents that permit them to do timber business, so they move at night to avoid detection by security personnel. The law states that timber cars can only operate between 6 am and 6 pm because, without reflectors, you won’t notice there’s a car in front of you, and it can cause an accident.
He therefore appealed to stakeholders to come together to enforce the law and make sure that they abide by the laws, because the law has made it clear that the moving hours for timber cars are 6 am to 6 pm.
Sly further explained that, like other institutions, working hours begin from 8 am to 5 pm, within which hours the Forestry Commission has an operative team that goes on patrol but at times they might have problems with their car, which could not allow them to go on rounds to monitor forest activities.
He took the opportunity to applaud a law-abiding timber operator who is famous and well-known within the Asunafo North municipality, Mr. Sheriff, for his commitment to making sure that after 6 pm, his timber cars are all parked.
