Transportation/Communication

It has a total of 154.1km of trunk roads, out of this, 63.9km are tarred. This represents 41.5% of trunk roads. It must be emphasized that this forms part of the Trans-West Africa Highway. The rest of the trunk roads are gravel or earth-surfaced. Apart from the trunk roads, it has a total of 253 km of feeder roads. Out of this only 59.3% are motorable. It must be noted that over 70% of these feeder roads can be found in the Southern half . The capital Axim has telephone system as well as a GSM Mobile network. Major towns like Esiama, Nkroful, Aiyinase, Kikam and Asasetre depend on radio operated telephone facilities. The situation needs to be improved to facilitate communication and investment

Terminal Facilities

Transport unions namely the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) and the Progressive Transport Owners Association (PROTA) on behalf of the Assembly manage the lorry parks in the district. With the exception of Axim and Aiyinase, facilities for passengers at the lorry parks throughout the municipality are very poor with travelers exposed to the vagaries of the weather.

Spatial Organization

This primarily relates to the type, number and distribution of facilities and services within the municipality. It is aimed at assessing the adequately or otherwise of these facilities and services and identifies the disadvantaged or locally deprived areas.

Scalogram Analysis

In Nzema East Municipal Assembly, there are 300 settlements of which three are classified as urban namely Axim, Aiyinase, Asasetre and Esiama. The classification of urban is based on settlements with a population of 5,000 people as minimum. All these three settlements have potentials to grow into big towns especially Esiama and Aiyinase due to current commercial and location advantages as well as the direction of population growth in the district.

The hierarchy of settlements in Nzema East Municipal was determined using a relative centrality of different settlements with regard to the function they performed. To find out the centrality of more important settlements, the presence or absence of 36 different functions in different places was obtained and processed to get a clear picture. Building a matrix called scalogram of settlement in the rows of a matrix and functions in the columns and indicating the presence or absence of functions to this. A population threshold of 500 plus was used to reduce the number of settlements from 300 to 55.

After building the table, the functions and the settlements were ordered in their rank of importance starting with the most abundant function and the settlement, which has the most facilities. In the next step, the centrality score for each function was computed by dividing a score of 100 by the number of times this function is actually present. (e.g. widely available function like primary school earns a score of 2 i.e. 100 divided by 51 where as a high order function like a training college earns a score of 100. thus the centrality index for each settlement is summed up.

Based on the summation, the settlements are then put in levels of 1,2,3,4, and 5. Level 1 settlement (s) are those with a total function of above 70%. Level 2 settlements are those with a total function of at least 50%, whereas level 3 settlements are those with a minimum of 40%. Level 4 settlements have minimum of 30% and a minimum of 20% for level 5 settlements. The analysis revealed that apart from Axim, Aiyinase, and Esiama, and Nkroful and Eikwe, most other settlements lack basic functions or services such as pipe borne water, health facilities, roads, etc. and had to depend on the few settlements mentioned above. Only Axim occupy level (1) one position with Esiama, Aiyinase and Asasetre being level 2 settlements.

The obvious lopsided effect in the southern part of the district has precipitated in migration from other parts of the districts notably the northern parts. Thus, pressure has been unduly mounted on social services especially housing. The plausible effect is the presence of slums as evidenced in localities like Apewosika and Bankyim in Axim. Within the framework of this poverty plan, measures including provision of basic health care, potable water, feeder roads and electrification projects have been put in place to reverse this trend. The Assembly intends to decentralize political and economic programmes to the northern portions.

Accessibility Analysis

The motive for accessibility analysis is to ascertain the ease or difficulty with which people within different spatial locations enjoy services located in other parts of the municipality. In a nutshell, it allows for measurement of over utilization or otherwise of a service. Four services were selected due to their importance in meeting the basic needs of the people in the district as well as enhancing the micro/local economy.

They were:

• Periodic Market

• Health Facilities

• Agriculture Extension

• Banking Facility

The accessibility of these functions were determined with following assumptions which were based on observed speed on the various models of transport and type of road links.

Observed Speed

First Class Road = 80km/hr

Secondary Trunk Road = 40km/hr

Feeder Road = 30km/hr

Walking = 5km/hr

Waiting Time First Class Road = 30 minutes

Secondary Trunk Road = 1 hr

Feeder Road = 2hrs

Periodic Market Linkage

There are four periodic markets, located in Aiyinase, Asasetre, Dominase, and Kutukrom. As an agrarian Assembly, goods traded in cure mainly agricultural produce from the catchments are and sometimes beyond. Manufactured goods are largely imported from outside the district especially from Takoradi and Elubo.

Health Services Linkage

There are two hospitals located at Axim and Eikwe and five health centres at Aiyinase, Asasetre, Bamiankor, and Kutukrom. Cases from these health centres and other health post are referred to the hospitals especially Eikwe: thus physical health access is widely available in the district.

Agriculture Extension Linkage

Extension officers are located at Axim, Esiama, Asasetre, Atuabo, Aiyinase, and Nyame-Bekyere service . Three Municipal Development Officers (MDO) who coordinate reports from these expansion officers supervises them. The overall jurisdiction is exercise by the Municipal Director of Agriculture.

Findings

Axim occupies the most dominant position in the linkages of all selected services due to its administrative functions as a capital. Moreso, vital services like hospital, banking, post and telecommunication as well as markets make Axim enjoys some great level of accessibility. These modes of services and commerce attract people from various parts who have to satisfy other diverse needs located in the southern part . The relocation of the trans-Africa Highway from the township of Axim has sapped Axim of its hitherto vibrant commercial nature to an almost emaciated state. What remains of Axim now are epitaphs bearing its past importance. A lot of conscious restoration is required in this direction thus, tourism as an urban concept is worth considering.

Aggregate Accessibility

This seeks to summarize the general accessibility situation in the municipality. Applying this to Nzema East, it has been identified that Axim, Aiyinase, Esiama, Asasetre, and Nkroful have access to most of the services (see map) Functional Region Analysis This is the area or location in the municipality with most intense interaction or cohesion. The essence is to cover possible areas where initial areas investment could take place. Thus was done with the aggregate accessibility in mind. In Nzema East, the functional region is located at Esiama, Asanta, and Axim areas where population is quite high as well as intense socio-economic activity.