{"id":467260,"date":"2018-02-24T16:00:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-24T16:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/24\/ghc17-8bn-road-debt-commitment-fees-hang-over-govt\/"},"modified":"2018-02-24T16:00:33","modified_gmt":"2018-02-24T16:00:33","slug":"ghc17-8bn-road-debt-commitment-fees-hang-over-govt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/24\/ghc17-8bn-road-debt-commitment-fees-hang-over-govt\/","title":{"rendered":"GHC17.8bn road debt commitment fees hang over gov\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">Business News of Saturday, 24 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>thefinderonline<\/p>\n<p>2018-02-24<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/63462354.295.jpg\" alt=\"Hohoe Jasikan Road\" title=\"Hohoe Jasikan Road\" width=\"295\" height=\"184\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>File photo<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125813973067\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125813973067\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1519488033_913_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\"> Roads Minister, Kwasi Amoako-Attah, has said government is expected to pay GH?17.8billion as \u2018commitment fees\u2019 inherited from the previous administration on road contracts.<\/p>\n<p>He told Parliament on Wednesday, when he was contributing to the President\u2019s State of the Nation debate that: \u201cAs at January 1, 2017, the total commitment at the road sector amounted to GH?17.8billion\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mr. Amoako-Attah, the commitment fees comprised all the road contracts put together: \u201cCommitment is all the contracts awarded put together; and once they are contracts and duly executed by the employer [government] and the contractor, all the terms and conditions therein are obligatory and binding unless steps are taken to set any of them aside legally. So, a commitment hangs on government unless it takes legal steps to set them aside, and I am saying that all the commitments put together across the nation was GH?17.8bn\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He also disclosed that the cost of completing the road projects amounted to GH?12.8billion.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Amoako-Attah however maintains that despite the huge debt hanging on government, it is still determined to fix the roads to a befitting status.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe took over a huge debt overhung in the roads sector. As at January 2017, the government of Ghana was owing contractors from GoG sources at the Ministry of Finance, GH?1.1bn.<\/p>\n<p>The minister also indicated that government did not have access to the road fund, since the previous administration had mortgaged it to UBA bank for a loan.<\/p>\n<p>President Akufo-Addo told the press during his one-year in office address last month that his government was working hard to clear debt owed to road contractors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 2017, nearly GH\u00a21billion (GoG \u2013 GH\u00a2300.4million; Road Fund- GH\u00a2664million) of the GH\u00a21.6 billion owed to road contractors was cleared. In January this year, we have disbursed GH\u00a2125million of the remaining GH\u00a2600million to the contractors.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the president stated, government has paid GH\u00a2826million of the GH\u00a21.2billion loan contracted by the previous administration \u2013 for which the Road Fund was used as collateral.<\/p>\n<p>The Western, Eastern and Central corridor, trunk roads, feeder roads and town roads across the country are all expected to be completed during the current government\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 56 updated by: 3 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Business News of Saturday, 24 February 2018 Source: thefinderonline 2018-02-24 File photo Roads Minister, Kwasi Amoako-Attah, has said government is expected to pay GH?17.8billion as \u2018commitment fees\u2019 inherited from the previous administration on road contracts. He told Parliament on Wednesday, when he was contributing to the President\u2019s State of the Nation debate that: \u201cAs at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":467236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}