Minority spokesperson on Roads and Transport, Kwame Agbodza, has described the Sinohydro deal by government which seeks to bridge the severe infrastructure deficit in the country, as not viable and unrealistic.
According to him, when the deal was brought before parliament, the minority questioned the capacity of the Corporation to handle the project within twenty-four months.
He explained that in spite of the deadline for the project, a lot of work hasn’t been done and as such the project has “woefully failed” to live up to expectation.
“When we approved this agreement, we raised the issue about the capacity of Sinohydro being able to do this $600 million worth of project within 24 months. The NPP insisted the Sinohydro is a world class organization and could do all of this. In fact, since it’s not a loan, government of Ghana is not disbursing. In other words, Sinohydro has got their own money and we have given them requirements to build within 24 months which they have woefully failed. Ghana government doesn’t have any hand in this, except to say that the agencies under the road ministry will supervise the work. So, they have totally failed this project”.
Mr Kwame Agbodza
Mr Agbodza explained that the minority is “wide awake on this”. As such, government must ensure that the deal is relooked at.
“We are not against government building roads but this is a convoluted, unrealistic contract they have signed. They can take ten years to say they have completed it, but what is the time value of money? This is not a viable deal; they have to repackage it and find another way of completing it”.
Mr Kwame Agbodza
Commencement of Sinohydro deal
Touching on the beginning date of the project, Mr Agbodza explained that like most contracts, it “has got a start date, a source of fund and a completion date”. As such, with the agreement parliament approved as part of the $2 billion, “$500 million was supposed to be for roads”.
Additionally, the minority spokesperson on roads and transport indicated that all the projects in phase 1 “was to have been completed by 31st December, 2020”.
“Parliament did not approve for the 10 Lot to be done in piecemeal. They were all called phase one which was supposed to have been completed in within the same period of time”.
Justifying the minority’s stance on their assertion that the Sinohydro deal has failed, Mr Agbodza noted that it is purely government running away from the national debt.
“But if you read the actual agreement, it is as good as a loan agreement. So, the money that has been expended so far will be captured as government debt. If you award a project to a contractor and we are ending the third year… the terms of the contract should have made you terminate that project without recourse to even the contractor. The Sinohydro does not have the capacity to do all this and they can’t draw down the money they claim they have… So, why are we pretending that this Sinohydro thing is a live project when after three years we can’t complete one and four of them haven’t even started at all? It’s a shame”.
Mr Kwame Agbodza
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