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We will prioritise road maintenance this year -Kwame Agbodza

The Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwame Governs Agbodza, has stated that the government will prioritise road maintenance this year in order to improve the conditions of roads across the country.

He gave the assurance after a tour of the various agencies under the Ministry on Monday in Accra.

According to him, there was the urgent need to improve the condition of the countrys road network to boost economic growth and enhance the quality of life of citizenry.

“Whatever have been said in the past, doesn’t matter, what matters today is that those roads that are not in good condition, needed to be worked on to enable the people in those areas go about their economic activities without hindrance,” he stated.

The Minister held separate durbars with staff of the Ministry, the Department of Urban Road, Feeder Roads and the Ghana High­ways Authority.

Accompanied by two Technical Advisors, Alhaji Baba Kasim and Dr Shelter Lotsu, Mr Agbodza stressed the need to ensure that road projects were sustainable and give the country value for money.

“Going forward, we need to make sure that projects awarded become more sustainable,” he said.

He lamented that too many projects started were never com­pleted on time resulting in govern­ment paying huge interest on these sums.

“I will constantly consult as well as seek your professional view, so that collectively we can meet the transportation needs of the people.

If we can’t pay for certain proj­ects, should we still consider them as active projects or put closure to them and find money and restart them when we can,” he stated.

The Minister expressed his commitment to advocating the de­capping of the Roads Fund, stating that the current capping was count­er-productive to the road sector.

Again, he explained that more than half of the Fund was taken by the central government, leading to delayed payments to contractors and increased interest charges.

“We take money from Ghana­ians for road maintenance, and we take more than half to the central government. Contractors filed their certificates, we don’t pay them, and then they charge us interest on delayed payment.

So by the time government release part of that money, the money doesn’t even go to the proj­ect but goes to pay for interest,” he emphasisied.

Mr Agbodza pledged to work with staff, contractors, and other stakeholders to resolve the chal­lenges facing the road sector, em­phasising that it’s his responsibility to do so.

 BY LAWRENCE VOMAFA-AKPALU

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