Minister urges local road contractors to up their performance

The Roads and Highways Minister, Ahaji Inusah Fuseini, has asked local contractors, awarded road projects to show strong commitment to work within schedule and ensure value for money.

They should let quality become the “watchword” to assure themselves of continued engagement by the government to reconstruct the country’s roads.

He criticized some of them for poor performance and asked that they stepped up their game.

Alhaji Fuseini was speaking during an inspection of on-going construction works on the Obuasi-Dunkwa-on-Offin-Ayanfuri road, under the cocoa roads rehabilitation project of the Cocobod.

The Minister, together with the Chief Executive of Cocobod, Dr. Stephen Opuni, expressed dissatisfaction with the slow pace of work by the contractors – Messrs. Ussuya Construction Limited and Facol Roads.

Despite being paid reasonable percentage of the contract sum, the two construction companies were far behind schedule.

Messrs. Ussuya, which is working on the 24-kilometre Obuasi-Dunkwa stretch has done only about 40 per cent of the job since the award of the contract in April, last year.

Messrs. Facol on its part, has finished just about 10 per cent of the eight-kilometre Dunkwa-Ayanfuri road, since the start of the reconstruction works over seven months ago.

The Minister warned that these delays were completely unacceptable and that it was important for the contractors to get their acts together and moved swiftly to complete the job.

He indicated that the Obuasi-Dunkwa road was an important corridor – a vital link between Ashanti, Central and the Western Regions.

Dr. Opuni cautioned that Cocobod could be forced to terminate the contracts and re-award them to new contractors, if massive improvements were not seen within the next one month.

He said the cocoa roads rehabilitation project was meant to address the transportation challenges faced by the people in the cocoa growing communities and bring some relief to them.

Source: GNA