Government has promised it will clear all debts owed road contractors by close of the year.\u00a0Government says it owes the contractors over two hundred and ninety six million cedis as at September 2015.<\/p>\n
Roads and Highways Minister, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, said this when he took his turn at the meet the press series on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe total indebtedness to mostly local contractors for work done as at 30th September for 2015 is about Ghc296.000.000. The Road Fund carried an indebtedness of Ghc 251,000.000 into the year 2015, which were mainly outstanding payments for works executed by road contractors\u201d.<\/p>\n
Contractors often chase government for payments for projects executed. In some cases, contractors have been forced to abandon the projects halfway for non-payment of monies owed them.<\/p>\n
The Minister further announced that the Road Fund provided GH\u00a2 312 million representing 97 per cent of projected revenue, to the three road agencies to primarily undertake routine and periodic maintenance works for 2015.<\/p>\n
The amount, though less than 50 per cent of total estimated amount for road maintenance programme for the year, it is a GH\u00a242.28 million improvement over the amount allocated for the year 2014.<\/p>\n
He said a total of GH\u00a2240.81 million has been disbursed for road maintenance works and activities of the beneficiary agencies between January and September 2015, while an amount of GH\u00a210 million has been allocated towards safety activities by National Road Safety Commission and Drivers Vehicle and licensing Authority.<\/p>\n
Alhaji Fuseini said the country\u2019s road network is continuously expanding through the creation of new districts and municipalities, which hitherto did not have their road networks on the national inventory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recorded network size has nearly doubled over the past 10 years as follows: 3700 km in 2000, 67,291km in 2008, 67,450km in 2010 and 71,063km currently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis rapid expansion of about six per cent per annum that has resulted from more communities in the rural areas being connected to the feeder road network, missing links being joined to the trunk road network and roads in newly declared municipal and metropolitan areas being added to the urban road network, have required even more resources for maintenance,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He therefore expressed the need to increase revenues into the Road Fund to cover the maintenance of the network.<\/p>\n
The Minister said many road projects across the length and breadth of the country clearly shows that\u00a0significant strides have been made in delivery of road infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral road networks which have remained poor for many years have finally been upgraded to facilitate socio-economic development. We however acknowledge that there is still a lot of work to be done and more effort is required to reach the levels that we set ourselves,\u201d he said.
\n–
\nBy: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Government has promised it will clear all debts owed road contractors by close of the year.\u00a0Government says it owes the contractors over two hundred and ninety six million cedis as at September 2015. Roads and Highways Minister, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, said this when he took his turn at the meet the press series on Tuesday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":76384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[38,17],"yoast_head":"\n