Road contractors suspend work due to lack of funds

Agona Swedru, May 22, GNA - Comfort Plaza, Shiraco Investment Company Limited and Namirat Company Limited all road construction firms in the Agona West Municipality have suspended their contract works citing lack of funds, heavy duty equipment and materials.

Comfort Plaza, which was awarded a 13.67 km road at a contract sum of GH¢1.4 million for the Lower Bobikuma-Agona and Kwaman-Nyarkrom roads January 2007, is expected to complete in September this year. So far only the culverts and drains have been constructed. The sub-base and base have not been done because of the lack of equipment.

This came to light when members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Roads and Transports led by its Chairman, Mr Albert Kwaku Obbin, Member of Parliament for Prestea Huni-Valley visited the area to inspect progress of work on feeder roads and highways being executed by the Agona West Municipality.

The visit was part of a week-long tour of the Central Region by the Committee.

Shiraco Investment Company Limited, supposed to surface the Agona Nyarkrom town roads covering 7.9km at a contract sum of GH¢1.1 million, is expected to be completed in September this year as well.

Again, only its drains and culverts have been completed. For the Namirat Company Limited, the Select Committee asked that they finish the surfacing of the 4.7km of Agona Swedru town roads by September this year or forfeit the contract since they started work in February 2006.

The Committee said Namiray was supposed to have completed its work in June 2007, but twice applied for extension of time and has still not been able to complete the work.

Of the GH¢420,169 contract, Namirat has been paid GH¢150,367. It has constructed the drains, culverts and retention wall. It complaint has been the lack of gravel to start the sub-base and base work. Mr Yaw Ntow-Ababio Vice Chairman of the Committee expressed concern about the work of the contractors in the Municipality and stressed that most contractors after winning the contracts, rushed to do the drain and culverts and end-up abandoning the main road work.

He called on the various road agencies to intensify their supervisory role to help stem the situation. On delay in paying contractors, Mr Ntow-Ababio explained that the problem was partly from the contractors for delaying in presenting their certificates of claims to the Ministry of Transportation. Alhaji Amadu Seidu, Ranking Member called on the Ministry of Transportation to engage more qualified engineers and personnel to all the road agencies to enhance supervision and monitoring of road contracts in the country.