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The National Vice Chairman of the Road Contractors Association of Ghana, has revealed that the government owes members of the Association a whopping amount of over GHS10 billion for roads constructed over the past five years.
According to Stephen Kwaku Attasi, 35 members of the Association, have died because of debt.
He added that some have lost their wives because they could not fend for them.
“As I’m talking to you, this morning some people are at the Ministry of Roads and Highways presenting their payment vouchers for works done in the roads construction sector,” he said on the Dwabre Mu morning show on Accra-based CTV hosted by Nana Otu Darko on Tuesday, April 5, 2022.
The National Vice President ,was interrogating the president’s claims of constructing over 10,000 kilometres of roads in the past years.
He revealed that the government has stopped giving road contractors mobilization and “when you talk they say you are doing politics.”
He noted that in recent times it takes a brave heart for one to be a road contractor in the country because they are unpaid after they have executed their jobs leaving them in debt and financial difficulties.
Earlier, the National Chairman of the Road Contractors Association of Ghana, John Afful Jnr had negated the quantum of new roads constructed across the country contained in the State of the Nation Address (SoNA) as presented before Parliament by President Nana Akufo-Addo on Wednesday, March 30, 2022.
“As an association, we have seen the government constructing some roads but as to the quantum of roads constructed so far, we don’t have the figures,” the president of the association explained.
“As to the quantum relating to the figure 10,000 kilometres being bandied about, I don’t have figures to back some of these claims,” he stated on Accra100.5FM.
He noted that the best institution to provide these figures to back these claims should be the Ministry of Roads and Highways.
“In my personal view, it is difficult to say what the president said was the true reflection of the state of Ghana’s roads but I think the Ministry should as a matter of urgency bring some clarity,” he stressed.
Mr Afful, said the government might have added the re-shaping and re-gravelling of some roads to the new roads constructed so far. He was quick to add that these are all new roads because they open up communities across the country.
“But as it stands now it is as if the 10,000 kilometres was the construction of asphalt roads,” he said.
He explained that there are many varieties in the road construction sector such as re-tarring, tarring, surfacing, gravelling, asphalting, re-asphalting, re-shaping, shaping, and re-gravelling.
He commended the government for awarding contracts to contractors in the sector but lamented that many of these contractors are yet to be paid.
