Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Heed Asantehene’s advice regarding road contractors

The importance of roads is synonymous with that of the road contractor, but the contractor can make this importance a reality with money to execute road projects.

However, it is common in Ghana that the government defers payments to contractors for reasons public officials deem fit; prominent among them is a lack of funds.

Sometimes payments can be delayed for a year, two, or more.

Contractors themselves and even some community members have complained about the problem of non-payment to road contractors due to the ramifications such as delayed or stalled work, layoffs, mounting interest on loans offered to contractors, and their inability to pay their suppliers.

Besides, sometimes some contractors suffer mistrust and threats from their workers, who think the contractors have received payments but do not want to give them their due.

A case in reference is the one in which the government failed to honour its promise to pay cocoa road contractors by the end of 2022, but their creditors, suppliers, and employees thought they had been paid and so started chasing them in early 2023.

Thus, on March 8, 2023, members of the Concerned Cocoa Road Contractors Association of Ghana marched to the office of the Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry for an emergency meeting with the leadership, where they threatened to take legal action if the money owed them was not paid by mid-April last year.

The contractors cannot be blamed for such agitations because sometimes some of them suffer starvation and health problems because they have spent their money on the projects they either executed in full or to a certain stage.

Oftentimes, one wonders why government officials treat contractors that way as if they are not aware of the suffering they cause the contractors, their suppliers, creditors, and workers, as well as families and communities.

Many are those who have spoken against the situation to no avail, so now the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II himself, has added his voice.

The Asantehene has called on the government to reconsider its payment methods to prevent situations where projects are left unfinished due to financial constraints.

He suggests that payments to road contractors should not necessarily be made in bulk but in bits or installments to provide them with the financial capacity to meet project completion deadlines.

Otumfuo Osei Tutu believes that when debts accumulate, it becomes very difficult to effect payment.

In Ghana, traditional leaders and the elderly wink at certain situations until they find it necessary to intervene in them.

This is exactly what Otumfuo has done, and there is no doubt that his voice carries enormous weight in national development.

We, therefore, believe that his intervention should change the status quo to bring some relief to contractors and all those who look up to them for one thing or another.

The change would also save the government all manner of embarrassment, such as when public officials have to be referred to for their failed promises to complete certain projects and the hardship they have caused the contractors and those they are accountable to in various ways.