Constitute Road Fund Board to address contractors remuneration – Construction Chamber to govt

As part of the efforts to ensure road contractors are paid on time for completed projects, the Ghana Chamber of Construction and Industry is calling for the establishment of a Road Fund Board.

According to the Chamber’s chief executive officer, Emmanuel Cherry explained, the Board when constituted will address teething issues among members who are owed monies by government for completed projects.

Speaking with Citi Business News monitored by GhanaWeb, Cherry added that efforts to ensure that its members are paid for contracts have yielded little results spanning as far back as 2017.

“We agreed on the principle that let the Ministry of Roads of Highways do percentage payment so 40% was agreed so that every contractor would at least receive 40 percent of their entry payment certificate. But as we speak, some contractors haven’t received the 40 percent. We are not talking about the 60 percent yet still Road Fund Board is not in place.”

“To the best of my knowledge, last year October [2020] till now, no payment has been made unless there is payment made at the blind side of us that we don’t know, but statutorily we haven’t seen any payment. That doesn’t mean the arrears are for last year October. From 2017 till date there are certificates on the table which have not been honoured.”

Emmanuel Cherry said this while some road contractors besieged the offices of the Ministry of Roads and Highways on Monday June 21, 2020 in a bid to demand payment for road contracts executed.

Meanwhile, some members of the Construction Chamber have also threatened to take legal action over the non-payment of monies and subsequently threatened to shut down areas where projects have been completed.