Delays cause 300km road project to be cut to 108km

A planned 300km road, to be executed under the Poverty Focused Rural Transport Programme (PFRTP) of the Ministry of Roads and Highways, has been reduced to 108 km as a result of delays and variations encountered in its execution, the Auditor-General’s report for 2013 from the performance audit report on the poverty-focused rural transport programme has highlighted.

The objective of the programme was to rehabilitate 300km of feeder roads in the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Regions. Due to the 6-year gestation period spanning between the years 2006 to 2011, the financial package could execute only a total of 108km after a review of the road inventory and prioritisation of selected feeder roads in the beneficiary communities.

According to Director of the Department of Feeder Roads Mr Francis Digber, the increased scope of work result from further deterioration of the roads due to the delay in execution caused the increase in cost.

“In real terms, however, the cost was the same,” he stated.

He explained that although the loan was in euros, payment was done in cedis, which was part of the reason €270,000 had been saved and is currently being used for a six-km road that is about 41 percent completed.

The report also noted that M/S DIWI Consult, the consultant for the programme, declared insolvency only a year after taking the job and was unable to complete the contract -- despite being paid more than €1.6million for 30 months’ work out of a loan of €7 million contracted for the project.

In view of this the Department of Feeder Roads (DFR) assigned the project to M/S MDC, the partner of M/S DIWI.

The loan of approximately GH¢11.20million and a grant of €200,000 (GH¢320,000) to the government of Ghana for the PFRTP was provided by Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW) on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany.

There were again variations due to the long period between feasibility studies, tendering and contract award, which consequently resulted in only about 36 percent of the roads envisaged being rehabilitated.

These were contained in some of the findings from an audit report from the Auditor-General’s Department at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament when they met the Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways+, Mr. Isaac Adjei-Mensah, and officials of the ministry to answer some questions on the findings as contained in the report.

The Chief Director of the Ministry Mr. Godwin Brocke said, going forward, a process has been initiated for a checklist that affords all agencies adequate time for the execution of projects to prevent variations from occurring.

Members of the PAC questioned the lowering of prequalification standards for local contractors, but Mr. Adjei-Mensah explained that the standards were set by KfW.