Nana Addo lied about Jasikan- Dodo Pepesu road contract – Mahama

Former President John Mahama has disclosed that contracts for the construction of the 54-kilometre Jasikan-Dodo Pepesu road has been inflated by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

He accused him of falsifying facts and figures on road contracts awarded by his government before the NDC left office.

He also accused him of abrogating all contracts and re-awarded them at exorbitant prices.

He used the Jasikan-Dodo Pepesu road and said Nana Addo re-awarded the contract for over $100 million dollars when he [Mahama] awarded the same contract – which was later abrogated by the NPP – for over $40 million.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo during his tour in the Oti region announced that work on the 54 kilometre Jasikan to Dodo Pepesu stretch of the Eastern Corridor Road will commence from the 3rd quarter of 2019, that is from July.

According to him, an amount of $45 million has been earmarked, under the phase 1 projects of the $2 billion Government of Ghana-Sinohydro Master Project Agreement, for the construction of the Jasikan to Dodo Pepesu road.

Speaking at a durbar held in his honour at Jasikan, on Tuesday, May 14, 2019, he recounted how, in 2016, he said he was yet to see the so-called "unprecedented infrastructural projects” touted by his predecessor, John Dramani Mahama."

"I stated, at the time, that, wherever I have been to, I never saw these so-called unprecedented infrastructural projects he (Mahama) claimed he had done. He [Mahama] responded by telling me that I was asleep, the reason why I hadn't seen these projects.

"However, there has not been a single durbar across the country where I have been where the issue of the poor road network has been raised by the Chiefs and people," the President said.

But the flagbearer of the NDC said Nana Addo lied adding that the NPP government stopped the contractor working on the road which his administration awarded.

In an interview on Accra-based Citi FM, he said "Look at this Jasikan road the president went to recently, we awarded it on contract and the contractor was working; it was the president who came, Nana Akufo-Addo, 2017, after he came, and asked the contractor to stop work, it was a cocoa roads project and that eastern corridor road was supposed to be finished by the end of 2018. That whole stretch of eastern corridor road would have been completed. He came and stopped work on all those segments of the eastern corridor and left it..."

"…The cost today is higher," Mahama said.

"This 54-km he has cut the sod for, one kilometre is going for one-point-something million dollars, far higher than the award we gave. The award we gave to Rolida was 40-something million, this award is 100-and-something million. And, so, you've re-awarded it at a higher price than even the original contract sum that we had given. And, so, 40-something-million dollars and 100-and-something million dollars, there’s a gap of about 60 million dollars. And, so, you can’t say that the costs under me were higher because this is a clear example.

"That road would have been completed by now at a lower cost but for the president coming and stopping it and leaving it to deteriorate to the extent that it has deteriorated and then awarding it again to a company to complete," he added.