Don’t certify shoddy road works
The Minister of Roads and Highways, Alhaji Amin Sulemani, has cautioned that henceforth, road engineers and quantity surveyors who supervised the work of contractors will be held responsible for certifying shoddy works.
“This undoubtedly calls for pro-activeness on the part of all stakeholders to ensure that road works are executed to specification in order to achieve high-quality return on investment”, he stated.
Speaking at a two-day road sector retreat at Elimina in the Central Region, Alhaji Sulemani stressed the need for road engineers and quantity surveyors to be vigilant in their monitoring and supervision of road projects to ensure that the government received value for money.
The call came on the heels of what the minister described as an increase in sub-standard road works, which usually deteriorated shortly after they had been constructed.
“The high expectations from the government and Ghanaians for good quality all-weather roads are reflected in the many complaints about substandard works that are reported in the media,” he said.
Alhaji Sulemani also expressed worry over variations orders made on ongoing road projects, stating that such changes and additions did not only increase the cost of building roads, but also contributed to the delay in completing such projects.
He consequently charged road engineers and their consultants to critically review designs before approval was issued for their construction.
“My observation is that projects are not adequately prepared by consultants and the agencies also do not review project designs, thereby leading to huge cost overruns.
He indicated that plans were underway to set up design review teams to ensure that projects were critically reviewed before they were approved.
According to him, “ results over the past years show a decline in the quality of work undertaken by contractors, delays in payments to contractors, extended completion period of contracts, unapproved variation orders, and increasing cost of interest payment to contractors, culminating in a high cost of undertaking our projects”.
He, therefore, charged the three agencies under the ministry to sufficiently resource its monitoring teams to improve on their supervision of projects.
The retreat was attended by officials of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA), the Department of Feeder Roads (DFR), the Department of Urban Roads (DUR) and the Ghana Road Fund Secratariat (GRFS) and the Koforidua Training Centre (KTC).
The two-day retreat brought together all the players in the sector to deliberate on their activities and how to improve on their delivery in the coming months.
It was expected that key decisions affecting the road sector would have been made at the end of the retreat.
Alhaji Sulemani also urged the engineers to improve on their monitoring and supervisory role to avoid shoddy work.
He announced that about US$112.74 million had been earmarked for the oil enclave roads in the Western Region. In addition, about US$234 million had been committed to the completion of the La Beach Road in Accra to Tema and the execution of the Accra Intelligent Management Traffic System. Contracts for the project have been signed, he stated.
The minister also asked the engineers to work deligently on donor funded projects including the rehabilitation of the Agona Junction-Elubo road in the Western Region, the reconstruction of the Dodi Pepesu-Nkwanta road on the Eastern Corridor, the rehabilitation of the Awoshie-Pokuase Burma Camp and Giffard roads, all in Accra.
Story: Naa Lamiley Bentil
Writer’s email: naalamiley.bentil@graphic.com.gh