The Member of Parliament (MP) for Mpohor in the Western Region, Alex Kofi Agyekum, is demanding action from the Ghana Cocoa Board on cocoa road projects that have stalled.
He contended that the neglect of the projects in most cocoa growing areas without any explanation to the communities and leaders leaves much to be desired.
In an interview recently, Mr Agyekum, whose constituency lies in the cocoa-growing belt of the region said COCOBOD and its contractors have no excuse for the continuous neglect of the projects.
With four months left to end the year, he insisted that there should be progress on the roads.
“I know the Chief Executive Officer of COCOBOD, Joseph Boahene Aidoo is doing very well and if those roads have been approved and a budget has been assigned for it, what are we waiting for?”
“So is it, papers that they are supposed to sign or contract letters that are supposed to be signed that they are not signing and that we are not seeing any action on the roads and nobody is telling anybody anything?
I think we must work past that,” Mr Agyekum said.
“When Members of Parliament call you, pick your phones and tell us the challenges so that together we solve them,” he implored.
Part of the reason for the stalling of the road projects was because the Akufo-Addo administration suspended them in 2017 for an audit following corruption concerns.
The Mahama administration was accused of awarding over 230 different road contracts to the tune of GHS₵3.5 billion under the project, to the detriment of COCOBOD’s finances.
Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo has said the report on the audit of cocoa roads commissioned by the Akufo-Addo administration will be published at the “appropriate time”.
The suspension was lifted in July 2019 and Consolidated Bank Ghana released GH₵530 million to COCOBOD for the construction of cocoa roads.
citifmonline.com
