Some residents of Hohoe in the Volta Region on Wednesday vented their anger on the Minister of Roads and Highways, Inusah Fuseini over what they describe as a misrepresentation of the state of their roads in the President’s State of the Nation Address.
President John Mahama announced in his State of Nation Address several road projects are ongoing in Hohoe to give the town roads a facelift.
However, Citi News checks on Hohoe roads showed otherwise.
The sector Minister, subsequently threw a challenge to Citi News disputing the report hence the visit to the place.
But the Minister was met by angry residents who described as mischievous the obvious misrepresentation of their situation presented to the President.
We’ve been deceived for long
Some of the angry residents speaking to the Minister said “we have been deceived for long. We are not ready for such deceptions again.”
“If they are ready to tell us anything, they should come to the road and do it. Where they initially showed you, it is Hohoe to Lolobi road, it’s not Hohoe town road. There are other Hohoe town roads they are not taking you to. The NDC people here are deceiving you. They should send you to the town road instead,” one of the residents vented.
Another one added that the contractor working on the Hohoe town road [with name Gohez] had abandoned the project close to four years now but “he rushed to the chief earlier before your coming to convince the chief to talk well in his favour.”
“Please they are not doing the town road so what the President said was false. He was totally misled,” he added.
Contractor summond
Meanwhile faced with the truth on the ground this is what the Minister had to say about the obviously abandoned project.
“I have directed that they summon him to a meeting in Accra on Thursday for us to assess his capacity to complete the work. So if we are convinced that he lacks the capacity to complete the work, we might have to look for an alternative contractor to do the work,” the Roads Minister added.
Roads in Hohoe township inspected by Roads Minister:
- Hohoe to Baika road, this is a trunk road but started from some part of Hohoe township to almost the outskirts of town.
- The post office through electricity to the municipal assembly road. This road was awarded in 2007 and completed in 2010 by Gohez and handed over long ago.
- The Mamaga road through Abansi to Kpeme – all suburbs of hohoe: This road was also awarded to Gohez in 2010. He constructed a few drains and abandoned the project since, he has not been seen around until yesterday when the minister came.
Interestingly, the 250m station road and about 300m Hospital roads which also were in bad state were not visited by the Minister.
Poor supervision
The Minister’s visit also exposed how some contractors are taking advantage of poor supervision to do what pleases them.
In the case of the Hohoe town road, Gohez, the contractor who was given about 4kms of the roads to construct some six years ago, constructed the drains but abandoned the project because payment of his letters of credit delayed.
41kms Golokwati
The 41kms Golokwati through Wli to Hohoe road also saw some 10kms of work done, representing about 20% of total work done but the contracted has since left.
However, Inusah Fuseini explained that the road is being awarded in phases and that the 10kms is the first phase.
Mr. Fuseini has now ordered a variation be given the contractor to come back to site for the second phase of the project which is 13km bituminous surfacing from km 10 at the outskirts of Fodome Helu to Wli.
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By: Gratham-Jaisey Mackintosh & Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana