Stop interfering in award of road contracts -Minister warns directors

The Minister for Roads and Highways, Mr Kwesi Amoako-Atta has warned directors and engineers of the Department of Urban Roads against interference in the award of road contracts.

He said he received complaints from Regional Ministers and District, Municipal and Metropolitan Chief Executives that the Ministry had given out list of contractors to be considered for award of some road contracts in their areas, which had been advertised by the Ministry in the newspapers.

Mr Amoako-Atta denied ever sending out any list of contractors for consideration for award of any contract and warned that next time he would take serious action against such directors if proven true.

The Minister, who was speaking at the formal opening of this year’s, management meeting of the Department of Urban Roads at Koforidua explained that the government believed in competitive bidding of contracts as it was the only way that the country could get the best and ensure value for money.

The Minister said, the high population resident in the urban areas of the country keep increasing and as such put much pressure on the road network.

He explained that such demands required that the department looked for new strategies for improving the road network which also required funding to reducing the unit cost of road construction.

Mr Amoako-Atta urged the engineers to look at the use of pebbles in the construction of drains and roads and urged the managers of the department to consider congestion charges for vehicles that enter the inner part of the cities.

He also called for the charging of people who violate the red lights at the traffic lights as a way of raising alternate funding for road construction and urged the road engineers to find ways of ensuring that estate developers constructed good roads leading to their estates before handing over good roads to the Ministry for maintenance.

He said in all the considerations, the engineers and directors of the Ministry should ensure value for money and warned that the Ministry would take punitive measures against anybody who would approve of any shoddy work for payment.