For lovers of tourism, some of the most popular places to visit in Ghana are the Kakum National Park, Legon Botanical Gardens, and the Kintampo Waterfalls. While the Kakum Park and Legon
Gardens are already famed for their canopy walkways, the Kintampo Falls has had a canopy walkway added to the experience after its reopening. Though patrons love and enjoy their time on the canopy walkways, not many people had the idea of how those walkways were built or who built them.
Well, it has emerged that the walkways and many others across Ghana are the handiwork by a man from Akyem Maase in the Eastern region called Kenneth Akufo Asare. In an interview with Kofi Adomah on Kofi TV, Asare has narrated how came to be the builder of those famed canopy walkways. According to him, the PNDC’s Central Regional Secretary, Ato Austin, visited Malaysia and saw a canopy walkway.
After showing interest, he was directed to the Canadians and he brought them down to build the walkway as construction started in September 1994 and ended in 1995. The Canadians were very old at the time and needed a Ghanaian who could help maintain the walkway when they were done with manufacturing.
At the time, Kenneth Asare was a parrot trapper at the wildlife division and was seconded to assist the Canadians who taught him a safer way of climbing trees. From his association with the Canadians, he learnt how to build the walkways and he has since built and maintained may such canopy walkways across Ghana and beyond.
Apart from building walkways at Legon, Kakum, Kintampo and other parts of Ghana, Kenneth Asare’s expertise has seen him do similar works in Kwara state in Nigeria. He also built a walkway on the sea at Ave Maria Resort, a popular tourist site in Tema which was pulled down in 2018 to give way to the Tema Harbour expansion project.
Currently, Asare is working on what he described as the longest walkway in Africa. A 460m long walkway in Akosombo which he expects to complete by December 2019.
Interestingly, Asare who has sixteen children claims all his children, especially, the 11 males among them, have been taught how to build the walkways.
Credit: yen.com.gh
