Minister regrets abandonment of road contracts in VR

Mr Kofi Dzamesi, Volta Regional Minister on Tuesday expressed regrets about the spate of abandonment of contracts that led to a recent termination of road contracts in the region by the Regional Tender Board.

He said, though these contractors might be faced with genuine difficulties, those could not be accepted as good reason for bad work or abandonment of contracts.

Mr Dzamesi said this in a speech read for him at the pre-tendering and tendering course of the Association of Road Contractors (ASROC) in the Volta Region in Ho.

ASROC and Capacity Building International (INWENT) of Germany jointly organised the programme.

He said the attitude of these contractors renegades in the contract business "is making the region not only to lose huge sums of money but also suffer setbacks in its developmental efforts".

Mr Dzamesi noted that, " more often than not, after winning contracts and being given the mobilization money, some road contractors just do not simply do any work at all on the contracts" Mr Dzamesi appealed to all road contractors working in the region to redouble their efforts and make a positive impact on the region's development.

He urged locally based road contractors to develop their capacity so that their contributions to the region's development would be seen to be more meaningful.

The Minister pledged that government would continue to support road contractors to enable them be better performers, as it regarded the roads sector as "extremely important for our socio-economic development".

Alhaji Soale Salifu, Regional Chairman of ASROC, in a welcome address, appealed to road agencies and regional administrations to make conscious efforts to give jobs to indigenous contractors to enable them put to use the skills and knowledge they will acquire from such training sessions.

He observed that the "influx of foreign contractors into the region has relegated the local contractors to penury".