Expose contractors who execute shoddy work – Minister tells technocrats
Alhaji Collins Dauda, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing has told technocrats to be candid and point out contractors who execute shoddy work.
By so doing, the government would not expend the nation’s scarce resources on quacks whose work leaves much to be desired.
According to him, he joined mainstream politics as a teacher and, therefore, does not have the professional competence of a construction engineer to easily identify buildings or structures that have been constructed with low quality materials and put human lives in danger.
Alhaji Dauda made the comments in Accra, at the opening of a two-day workshop on the theme “Regulating and sanitizing the construction industry in Ghana”.
He said though he was a not professional in the construction sector, he was obliged as a sector Minister to be signing contract certificates for contractors who have been certified as having completed their work, only to realize later that the project was poorly executed.
He stated that the collapse of the Melcom Story Building at Achimota, a suburb of Accra, some months ago, was a wake up call for the restructuring of the construction industry to ensure that proper regulations were followed.
Critical issues to be discussed at the training programme would include regulation, health and safety issuance of permits, planning practices, procurement and infrastructural development as well as current rules, regulations and protocols governing the construction industry with the view to identifying the gaps and finding remedies.
Alhaji Duada urged the participants not to hesitate in pointing out flaws and faults in buildings and road to the appropriate authorities for action should they come across them.
“As professionals and players in the industries, I encourage you to peer review your colleagues and report instances of shoddy works, so that government can take the needed action, I pray that we will all police each other to avoid these heart breaking disasters’’ he added
The Chairman of the National Development Planning
Commission (NDPC), Mr Paul Victor Obeng cautioned contractors against using unorthodox means (shortcuts) to fast-track the completion of their projects stressing that such negative acts undermined quality of work.
He charged the contractors to institute their own quality assurance mechanism to boost the image of the industry and thereby win public confidence.
The Minister of Roads and High ways, Alhaji Amidu Sulemani in an interview, said that there would be sanity in the road sector if contractors who engaged in the use of low quality materials to churn out poor work were blacklisted or sanctioned.
He advised motorists and other road users against the spilling of petroleum products on the roads since the practice tends to reduce their life span.
Source: Ghanaian Times