Ghana government urged to pay up its debts
Mr Louis Satchmo Attia Atongo, Managing Director, Architectural and Engineering Services Limited (AESL), has called on government and its agencies to endeavour to promptly pay for its services to enable it to undertake its activities.
He said prompt payment would help the company avoid paying penalties for delayed payment which tends to wipe away its hard earned consultancy fees.
Speaking during the 5th AGM and 2014 annual report of the company in Accra on Friday, Mr Atongo said the company was indebted to three companies amounting to GH¢6.7million (inclusive of penalties) as a result of continued delay in payment for consultancy services rendered to government.
He noted that due to inflation, the depreciation of the cedi and the energy crisis, the company significantly increased the expenses of AESL.
“The effect was that while our income increased by 10.6 per cent (from GH¢9.64 million to G¢10.66 million), our expenditure increased by 27 per cent, which consequently made us make a loss of GH¢247,022 in 2014 as compared to a profit of GH¢1.07million in 2013,” he added.
He cited the preparation of site plans, topographical layout, geo-technical investigations and detailed designs for external and ancillary works at 23 senior high schools under the Secondary Education Improvement Project as some of the major projects the company won in the year under review.
He said despite all the challenges the company faced, it was able to purchase five vehicles to augment its fleet of vehicles and a total of 20 computers to facilitate service delivery.
Dr Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, lauded the company for partnering government over the years as its consultants for the execution of its projects.
“AESL also assist our Ministry in the formulation of policies to address the challenges facing the construction industry,” he added.
He praised the company for designing and supervising the construction of the senior high school that was named after the late President John Evans Atta Mills at Otuam in the Central Region.
He said government came out with the National Housing Policy to enable it to address the huge housing deficit of more than 1.7million units.
Dr Agyemang-Mensah praised AESL for the use of local materials in its works such as the use of pozzolana cement in government projects – the construction of basic and secondary institutions throughout the country.
He said government has also designed the Engineering Council Act 819, 2011 to regulate the practices of engineering, which include the registration of engineers, how to monitor and evaluate works, as well as the performances of engineers in the country.
Mr John Owusu Acheampong, Board Chairman, AESL, said the construction sector under which the AESL fall, did not witness any growth – zero per cent in 2014 as compared to 2013, which it recorded a growth of 8.6 per cent.
He said only three out of the 10 regional offices of the company were able to achieve their set targets due to contractors abandoning projects as a results of non-payments for works executed.
AESL is a government consulting engineers, architectural and surveying organisation.
Source: GNA