Never again should we allow inactions to cost us

The Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho, got furious last Friday and chided Parliament’s Select Committee on Roads and Highways for its inability to detect and flag expenditure overruns in the Achimota-Ofankor Road Project, which led to the inflation of the cost by 217 per cent.

For lack of proper monitoring and inaction, the country expended GH¢128 million on the road project instead of the GH¢40.4 million that was originally approved, a whopping GH¢87.6m differential.

It is more worrying that the inflated cost had GH¢4.4 million imbedded as interest arising from the delay in the payment of work done.

The Speaker’s reaction comes as Public Accounts Committee’s ( PAC) report on the Performance Audit Report of the Auditor General on the project  said it was possible the delay in payment arose from the Ministry of Finance’s unawareness of the upward revision of the cost of the project.

The committee said as of the time they met on the Performance Audit Report of the Auditor General on the Achimota-Ofankor Road project, construction works on the project was 88 per cent complete, raising fears that the cost could rise further by the time the entire project was completed and handed over. 

That, according to the Speaker of Parliament, could have been avoided if the Committee on Roads and Highways had prompted the House on the new expenditures.

As a result, he said: “the Committee failed the House and the people of Ghana.”  

But while the speaker asked the whole house to take responsibility for the inaction, he said it was “an eye opener to all of us.”

The Graphic Business associates itself with the concerns of the Speaker of Parliament about the inertia which had brought the gargantuan cost upon the country.

The paper believes that the country was at the cusp of either moving forward fast or staying put to be overtaken by the fast paced events of the world. If we must fast forward our development and move with the rest of the world, then the country has to put systems in place to ensure it gets value for every pesewa it spends.

With resources becoming scare across the world, judiciousness becomes the watchword and Ghana should not lose any opportunity to get more from every investment it makes.

Doing this requires innovation, commitment and putting the national interest ahead of personal interests.

Enough said about how Ghana’s peers such as South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore have surpassed us and lifted themselves into an advanced economy. Ghana is still grappling with rudimentary poor education, sanitation, inadequate infrastructure, poor wages, and low job opportunities. This is the time leadership of the country must show proof of their commitment and lead the way out of our economic quagmire. 

Some members of the Roads and Highways Committee have argued that the inaction was as a result of lack of resources to conduct thorough monitoring. For such an exercise as important as monitoring national projects the state must always find the resources to facilitate it. 

The Graphic Business is wondering how many such project costs have been inflated across the country, how much waste the systems and frameworks we have as a country are generating and for how long do we want to allow the moneys we invest in project deliver less than their values to the country.

Often times, the country knows what should be done, but implementation has always been the missing link for many strange regions. The earlier value for money is embedded in every fabric of society, the faster the economy can develop and make tangible progress.