Ghc20m standby fund made available for Eastern Corridor road

The Government of Ghana has put aside Ghc20 million as standby funding for the construction of the Eastern Corridor road, Chief of Staff Prosper Bani has revealed.

“Government has made a commitment of over Chc20 million as standby resources should the contractors working on site provide any certificate for payment.

“That means government is committed to refunding to back up implementation of the project,” Bani said Friday when he led a delegation to inspect portions of the Eastern corridor road as well as other road projects in the Volta region.

The visit follows a demonstration by some residents in the region about the poor nature of roads there.

The Eastern Corridor road is a national route N2, according to the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) classification.

It starts from the Tema Motorway Roundabout in the Greater Accra Region and ends at Kulungugu in the Upper East Region on the north-eastern border with Burkina Faso.

The road traverses the Greater Accra, Eastern, Volta, Northern and Upper East regions, covering 695 kms, connecting major towns such as Tema, Atimpoku, Hohoe, Nkwanta, Bimbila, Yendi, Bawku and Kulungugu.

The contractors, Messrs G.S. International Developer GH Ltd and the China Jiangxi International Corp are the only two who were awarded the Government of Ghana fully-funded programme in September 2011 and were expected to complete the project within 24 months.

In October this year, the Government released over Ghc500 million to the contractors to enable them expedite work on the project.

G.S. International, which was awarded the 45-km Asikuma Junction-Hohoe-Jasikan-Poase Cement stretch of the road, representing Lot Two of the Eastern Corridor road, has so far done only 13 per cent of the work.

China Jiangxi, which is working on the Lot Four stretch on the Nkwanta-Oti Damanko portion of the road totalling 50kms, has so far done only 16 per cent of the work. The two contractors abandoned the work at a point due to lack of funding.

The contractors, according to Bani, have also varied the cost estimate of the project, which, he noted, has been “acknowledged by the Ministry of Roads and Highways”.

“In today’s conversation with the contractors, it was determined that the contractors will submit their new calculations to the minister of roads and highways Tuesday to agree on the way forward on new calculations for the cost estimate of the project,” Bani said.