Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways meets contractors

Tamale, Oct. 1, GNA - Mr. Alex Seidu Sofo, Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways has expressed concern about the low pace at which contractors in the Northern Region are executing road contracts.

He regretted that the Ministry this year, awarded a number of contracts in the region but most of the contractors were either not on site or were working at such a slow pace that completion of most of the road projects are behind schedule.

The Deputy Minister said this at a forum organized by road contractors and heads of road agencies in the Northern Region in Tamale on Wednesday.

The forum was to enable the Deputy Minister to brief the contractors and the heads of road agencies on the latest development in the road sector.

Mr Sofo said the lack of good road infrastructure was a contributory factor to the increase in prices of farm inputs, reduction in trade and high cost of credit to farmers, as well as the root cause of poverty, illiteracy and disease among the rural population.

He therefore, asked contractors to take their work more seriously and warned that the government would not hesitate to terminate contracts that are unduly delayed.

Mr Sofo appealled to the big time contractors to support the small ones to develop, saying: "This can be done by subletting culverts, drains and other minor works to them".

He announced that the sector Ministry is working out a mechanism to ensure prompt payment of contractors, while plans are also far advanced to provide some of them with equipment and machinery to facilitate their work.

He called on contractors to attach more seriousness to capacity building workshops organized by agencies of the Ministry. Mr Emmanuel Papa Pireku, the Regional Highways Director, said the Northern Region has a total of 8,787 kilometres of roads consisting of 2,608 kilometres of trunk roads, 5,898 kilometres of feeder roads and 284 kilometres of urban roads.

He said unfortunately, only 734 kilometres of the total length, representing 8.4 per cent of the roads, are tarred. This situation has adversely affected the socio-economic development of the region, he added.

Mr Pireku said all the major river crossings needed to be bridged to facilitate the region's integration and the social cohesion of the people.

Mr Emmanuel Attah, the Regional Secretary of the Contractors' Association expressed concern about the rate at which the sector Ministry is issuing new licences to contractors

He said: "There is currently a proliferation of licences, which if not checked, could bring the road construction sector into disrepute and lead to more shoddy work in the system".