Contractors Demand Payment for Work on Cocoa Roads

The Association of Road Contractors is appealing to government to speed up the processes it is following, to pay its members monies owed them for the construction of roads in cocoa growing areas.

In 2015, the erstwhile NDC government launched a one hundred and fifty million dollar ($150 m) project to improve road infrastructure in cocoa growing communities.

The project has since been put on hold but the contractors are demanding payment for the job done so far.

In an interview with Citi Business News, the National Chairman of the Association of Road Contractors, Daniel Agroh said the contractors have not received payment for the construction of the cocoa roads since  October 2016.

“With regards to the cocoa roads, government has not made any payment since October 2016; we have been meeting  management of COCOBOD and they promised us last week that they were going to issue a statement to that regard”.

He explained that though COCOBOD had assured them they had completed an audit to find the cost of the roads constructed, the contractors are yet to receive their monies.

“They told us that they had finished the auditing to find out how much had been spent on the roads so far but up till now none of us knows what is happening, the same with the government of Ghana. They said they were auditing before payment but up till now there has been no payment even though they said they finished the auditing in September and up till now, no payment”.

The Minister for Roads and Highways, Amoako Atta earlier stated that, government has paid contractors a sum of over GHc1 billion to enable them resume work on stalled road projects across the country.

According to him, most ongoing road projects had stalled due to failure of the previous administration to pay contractors for work done between two to five years.