The contractors once locked up the classrooms
Amo Enterprise, the contractor and creditor of 18-unit classroom blocks built under the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) project, has threatened to re-lock classrooms of TI Ahmadiya School at Tema in a bid to protest the educational trust’s disregard of their plight.
According to the company, the Fund has ignored their persistent efforts to get an amount of GH¢500,000.00 owed them since the completion of the project over three (3) years ago, paid to them.
Speaking to The Insight, Mba Aduku Abarighi, project engineer for the school project, indicated that the company locked the classrooms of the school, built under the project which was fully pre-funded by the contractor.
He said that they took the action on April 30, 2024, to protest the “feet-dragging” and inaction on the part of the GETFund.
However, to their surprise, their checks indicate that the classrooms had been re-opened and students had started enjoying it without recourse to them, amid the ‘dead silence’ from GETFund.
The company has, therefore, threatened to return and re-lock the classrooms and prevent students from using same.
It will be recalled that the TI Ahmadiyya School in Tema, on Tuesday, April 30, was locked up by the contractor for non-payment of monies owed him by the government.
The basic and Junior High School, which is situated at Community 5 in Tema, in the Greater Accra Region, is said to have benefited from an eighteen (18) unit classroom facility constructed about four years ago through the GETFUND.
However, according to officials of Amo Enterprise, which is the contracting firm, the government has failed to pay the remaining debt owed them, despite several pleas.
Hence they had no other choice than to lock up the school, which reopened that same day, April 30, 2024, in a bid to communicate their frustration and plight to the government.
Throwing more light on the unlawful use of the block, Mr. Aabrighi, the engineer, revealed further that the company owes several banks as a result of loans contracted to finance the project and these banks are tightly on the neck of Amo Enterprise Limited, even to the extent of affecting their assets.
The project is said to have cost a million Ghana cedis, with the government making an initial payment of half the cost (GH¢500,000.00).
According to him, an initial review of pricing for the project by the government took over two years to be effected, which led to the delay of the initial payment.
He noted that after several back and forth, the bottleneck was cleared and the first tranch of payment was made.
Also, they were very incensed when upon enquiry from the GETFund by the director of the company on the state of affairs, he was told that their certificate was missing from the GETFund office, only to be called back that the certificates had been found after he threatened to lock the facility.
He added that they suspected deliberate frustration from officials, resulting in the non-payment of their money.
He lamented that they cannot sleep peacefully in their homes due to persistent harassment from banks they owe, who come every now and then to seize one property or the other.
The project is said to have started in 2019 and was completed in October 2021, however, according to him, authorities have always been complaining that there is no money, while expenditure made by agencies and the government is very evident for all to see.
