The Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Atta, has stated that government has settled its indebtedness to contractors within GH¢5million thresholds.
“All contractors who are owed since 2014 to August 31, 2019 under the Consolidated Fund have all been paid 100 per cent.
“I challenge any contractor within this threshold to come out to say he or she has not been paid,” Mr Amoako-Atta said on the floor of Parliament in Accra yesterday.
All others who are owed more than GH¢5million have been paid up to 40 per cent under the funding source, Mr Amoako-Atta said.
He made this revelation when he responded to a question asked of him by the South Dayi Member, Nelson Dafeamekpor, who wanted to know when work on potholes between Asikuma junction and Peki on the Eastern Corridor road would resume.
Work on that stretch of the Eastern Corridor road was said to have stalled since 2017 for lack of funds.
The company working on the road was said to have been indebted to the tune of GH¢275,000.
But Mr Amoako-Atta said all efforts were being put in place to address the state’s indebtedness to contractors and that the contractor in question had been paid.
Evidence of this commitment, he said, was that all other contractors owed not more GH¢500,000 under the Road Fund had all been paid fully.
According to the Roads and Highways Minister, with this year declared the year of roads, the government was doing everything possible to address the gaping road infrastructure needs of the country.
He said though the contractors had been settled, the Mobile Maintainable Unit of the Ghana Highways Authority, an agency under the ministry would not hesitate to move to site to do the ‘petty’ jobs like filling potholes which some of the contractors had been engaged to do.
The government he said, would not hesitate to terminate the contract of those who would delay in returning to site after they have been paid.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in October last year directed the Finance Ministry to release GH¢2.2 billion to pay contractors working on various roads across the country.
That amount, Mr Amoako-Atta said had been released and that work on the various roads had resumed.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
