Government is pushing us to do shoddy work - Road contractors

Vice-Chairman of the Road Contractors Association of Ghana, Stephen Attatsi, has lashed out at government for pushing them to do shoddy work and turn around later to blame them for the poor work done.

According to him, the government sometimes fails to sign contract for the exact kilometre of roads and by far how many square kilometres.

Government has moved the road warranty from 1 year to 5 years and the road contractors are not happy.

Mr. Attatsi stated “ Every contract has a duration; some can be 18 months or 36 months. When you finish they will come and inspect it. Sometimes they will tell you for 5 months. I don’t know if they are taking the five months to mean five years.

Citing an example for the poor work, Mr. Attatsi said “Sometimes they [government] will give you money for one community and then they come later and tell you to extend it to 10 communities. for that matter, the contractor will do everything possible to make sure he extends it to 10 communities but later when there is a problem they come and put the blame on you.”

Mr Attatsi who revealed this on the 3FM Sunrise Morning Show, further stated

“For instance now when you go to a lot of places, people are crying now for bitumen and the people only see coal tar but they don’t know it is not finished work yet because they [government] tell you to finish the 20 kilometres so the contractor will put a primary seal then you put the secondary seal before the road will take shape. Take the Spintex road for instance there was a time they said they were putting asphalt but now use the road and see. it is not the contractor’s fault it is instruction given to you at the site”.