Ghana is running a 'spoil system' - Exe. Dir. of Safety Ghana decries

The renovation work started in 2008

Executive Director of Safety Ghana, Nana Annor Amihere has lambasted experts at state institutions for bending their professional standards and engaging in shoddy works to please the executive arm of government.

His assertion comes at the back of a 25 million dollar renovation work on the Job 600 building which was to provide offices for all 275 Members of Parliament, which has been established that it was done with inferior and substandard materials. The edifice is already showing signs of decay.

The Chinese firm, China State Hualong Construction Company responsible for the renovation has now been ordered to deconstruct all the fittings and structures found to be inferior.

Meanwhile during a tour of the facility by Parliament's Committee on Works and Housing, the chief resident engineer Ekow Bentsi-Echill confessed to the MPs on Wednesday that the renovation materials were simply not good for use.

But speaking on Joy FM's Top Story, Wednesday, Nana Anor Amihere said the resident engineer could have done better, and not to have allowed the contractor to use the inferior materials, only for him to turn back to “lament” later.

He also questioned the role played by the Architectural and Engineering Services Limited that is supposed to provide professional advice to government on such projects.

“There is a spoil system going on [in the country] that the institutions of faith that are supposed to check the executives, they are in bed with the executives. So instead of doing the right thing, then they do what we say in Ghana 'scratch my back and let me scratch your back'”

The resident engineer had explained that he allowed the use of the materials because they had already been bought, Mr Anor Amihere retorted, “Because you've gone to buy drugs that have expired, because you've paid money for them, will you use them?”

He said last year's Melcom Disaster should have served as a test case for responsible authorities to conduct geotechnical safety inspection on state buildings to ensure that they are sound and safe for human occupation.

He recommended that an independent geotechnical and safety inspector examined Job 600, “otherwise it should be suspended until an independent inspection is conducted”.