Minister directs contractors to engage local workforce

Construction firms executing infrastructural projects for the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) has been directed to engage the local workforce to create jobs for the people.

The firms must furthermore procure building materials from the locally-established hardware stores to boost the local economy.

Mr Augustine Collins Ntim, a Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, in-charge of Rural Economic Development and Agriculture, gave the directed when he performed a groundbreaking ceremony for work to begin on the construction of ultra-modern offices for the Pru East District Assembly at Yeji in the Bono East Region. By so doing, residents in the local communities would cooperate with and support contractors to speed up and complete projects on time, he added.

The two-storey block, to be executed by Anniya Limited, an Accra-based construction firm at the cost of GHC200,000.00, is expected to be completed within 11 months.

It would be funded through the District’s share of the District Assembly Common Fund.

Mr. Ntim said construction companies would also be executing quality work if local communities take part and monitor their work.

He said this year the government was constructing about 44 Assembly blocks nationwide and assured that his Ministry would facilitate the completion of all Assembly buildings, which were started by the previous government but had come to a standstill.

Mr. Joshua Kwaku Abonkrah, the Pru East District Chief Executive assured the people of his commitment to ensuring equitable distribution of physical infrastructure projects, among all the communities in the District.

He said the Assembly would require cooperation and support from the local communities if it could bring development to the next level and called on the locals to guard against partisan politics which had a huge potential of retarding progress.

Mr Abonkrah emphasised that until the people bury their political differences, they would not be able to embrace and support the implementation of the government’s socio-economic transformation programmes geared towards job creation and poverty reduction.

He said maximum support was required from the people, irrespective of their political affiliations, to make the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJs) as well as the Planting for Export and Rural Development (PERD) programmes achieve desirable results.

Mr Abonkrah expressed the hope that the contractor working on the project would guard against shoddy work and complete within schedule.