Hon. Sillah added that during the tour in some areas, he has seen some renewed commitments from the side of contractors and consultants to ensure that efforts are doubled to meet targets, but also targets that are sufficient to our standards and also the quality needed.
He said in some places he was not very happy with what he saw in terms of progress, as some of the contractors are below 50% for works that should have been delivered “but that does not necessarily mean they are at fault 100%.”
However, he noted that there are issues that the government need to resolve, especially the issues surrounding the controversies that have to deal with land compensation and also resolving community disputes where works need to pass as road construction progresses.
According to him, in some areas also there are social services like water, pipes and also electricity, as well as telecommunication cables, adding that moving those services from the path of the construction works, is actually very challenging because in most cases, Nawec, Gamtel and the rest don’t have the site marks of the infrastructure that they laid underground.
Therefore, he continued, “it takes a tedious job to make sure that some of those services are treated with caution to avoid causing absolute destruction and obstruction to their availability in the local communities.”
“In some areas we have seen the late mobilisation of equipment to the construction sites to the fact that they have altered the very essence of start of the contract period but yet, we are putting pressure on the contractors and consultants, as we made it very clear to all of them that we are not going to accept sub-standard work.”
Hon. Sillah added that: “If we give you money for a specific standard, make sure those standards are met because the roads will be audited and we don’t want following audits and unnecessary queries raised about things that should have been done by contractors and were not done.”
Additionally, he said: “If in the audit report, contractors willingly neglect to the point that they rushed and hand over sub-standard work, government will take action and in trying to avoid that, we hope to organise a meeting with all the contractors, as well as with the consultants to put to them our road map and strategy.”
“We believe talking to each other frankly is very key, as we went round and observed everything, as well as made reviews on lots of things, corrections will happen in some areas; immediate actions would also be taken in some areas and also in some areas, we would have to commend some of the contractors, as a quite number of them are doing a remarkable job.”
For those that have issues, he continued, “we need them to redouble up and ensure that they meet their contractual obligation to the government and on the side of the government, contractors have raised issues of late payments to them.”
“As a cause of the above, we would take up with the Finance Ministry so that as much as we want contracts to be delivered on time, we would also ensure that the contractors are paid so that they can deliver these wonderful pieces of infrastructural works to us on time and on budget.”
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