Urban 5 Project Stalls

as Contractor, GWCL Lock Horns
THE MUCH trumpted Urban 5 project to rehabilitate and tar a number of streets in the Nkawkaw township has almost become a standstill due to a misunderstanding between the contractor, Adehye maa Industrial complex and Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) over location of pipe lines.

The controversy came about when the contractor allegedly contacted the GWCL to assist in relocation of pipelines, which were laid in the middle of the roads some years back.

The GWCL was alleged to have estimated over ?1.720 billion as its charges on the job, a figure which is almost half of the contractual sum of ?3.8 billion.

According to the site engineer, Mr. Hope Anthony, the contractor could not afford the figure and since the contractor is qualified to undertake a sewerage job, they decided to use their own workers to lay new pipe lines outside the roads using high quality materials at the cost of ?520 million.

The site engineer said, the contractor took the decision after the GWCL allegedly failed to honour several invitations to attend site meetings to discuss the issue.

He said, after laying the new pipelines, the contractor wrote to the GWCL and informed them of the contractor's plans to connect the new lines to GWCL main lines to enable the contractor to remove those in the middle of road for the continuation of the job.

According to him, the Eastern Region Director of GWCL, Mr. Ebenezer K. Garbrah, wrote a letter to warn the contractor not to connect the new lines to the GWCL lines citing the contractor's refusal to allow GWCL to undertake the job.

He said, the situation has caused the contractor to stop work temporarily to seek settlement on the impasse.

When the Eastern Regional Director of GWCL was contacted, he confirmed that there had been a misunderstanding between his outfit and the contractor over the relocation of the pipelines.

He blamed the contractor for failing to meet GWCL to thrash out the issue before laying the pipes.

He said, the figure his outfit quoted was just an estimate, which needed further discussions and negotiations to arrive at an acceptable figure.

He explained that GWCL was confronted with several problems due to shoddy work by contractors hence their insistence on undertaking such jobs to ensure quality and durability.

The Regional Director stated that, it was not GWCL's intention to delay the project and, therefore, urged the contractor to meet them to settle the matter once and for all.

In a related development, the pipelines on the Nkawkaw Holy Family hospital road and other streets which were recently tarred by Somuah Dapaah Construction Company have started bursting thereby destroying the roads.