Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry, Emmanuel Cherry has urged the government to engage local contractors in the construction of roads in 2021.
Following the declaration of 2021 as the second year of roads by President Akufo-Addo, he stated the move will create jobs and generate income for the contractors and other Ghanaians.
Speaking in an interview, Mr. Cherry said to achieve this, government must rank local content first in road construction.
“While the government is also trying as much as possible to give the juicy contracts to the foreigners, it must try as much as possible to at least introduce local content or ownership content”.
Additionally, he noted it will be prudent for government to at least rope in indigenous contractors to ensure there’s retention of monies in the country.
“We, the locals, we are the owners and therefore there must be ownership content. At least a local partner must be part for us to get some of the money to remain in the country”.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, delivering his inaugural speech on Thursday, January 7, 2021 declared 2021 as the “second year of roads”.
According to the president, he will primarily focus and prioritize road projects to improve infrastructure this year.
“Our roads are being constructed at a faster pace than before, and yes, there are still many more kilometers to construct. We defined last year as the year of roads. This year will be the second year of roads as we continue with our focus on dealing with the deficits of our road infrastructure.
“The development of our rail sector on which considerable resources and energies are being devoted will open up the country and also help realize the goal of regional and continental integration”.
Prior to this, the construction had caviled about debts owed road contractors in the country purportedly hovering around almost $2 billion.
Mr. Cherry speaking on the matter indicated that government had justified their delay in payment to their inheritance of a huge debt from the previous government.
“Our rough estimate that we have put across is $1.8 billion. As they said earlier, according to the ministry’s statistics or data that was relayed to us after the handing over of the previous administration to this administration, they made the assertion that they inherited a huge debt from the previous administration.
“On the side of road farms and cocoa roads, there are a number of works that have gone on but the government of the day also took steps to at least try to validate or conduct an audit to ascertain the validity of those projects and as a result, all the projects in the country were put to halt. In the contract sense, over 3,000 certificates are locked up in the ministry”.
Mr. Cheery stated that although an ultimatum was given to the government in October 2020, they have still not received any information on what their payments.
“We have engaged a number of authorities, the National Security, National Labour Commission, Ministry of Roads and Highways, GETfund on a number of discussions”.
