Minister demands BMW to monitor Achimota-Ofankor highway project

Some members of parliament are fuming with anger following revelations that former Roads and Highway minister Joe Gidisu requested a BMW saloon vehicle valued at $160.503,76 from the contractors of the Achimota-Ofankor highway in Accra to enable him inspect the project.

The Highway Authority also demanded for the renovation of their CEO’s office from the Chinese contractors.

However, the MPs are angered by the then minister’s request of the BMW 7-series instead of a pickup truck which is often used for such inspections.

The project which is being funded by the government of Ghana is being executed by the China Railway Wuju (group) corporation.

According to a report by the Public Accounts Committee of the House, the project has overshot its original budget by over 200%.

“Items considered to be unrelated expenditure; cardinal among them was the purchase of a BMW- 2010 model saloon car at $160.503,76 with an associated one year insurance. Other expenditure deemed to be unrelated to project are head office backstopping (GHC50,000), psoting allowances for 13 GHA staff transferred to head office (GHC34,764.73): conversion of GHA’s archive base into offices and renovation of CEO’s office (GHC33,225.62) and participation of four staff in Urban transportation course at KNUST (GHC2,400),” the report stated.

It continued: “On the purchase of the BMW saloon vehicle, the acting chief executive officer explained that the vehicle was bought for the use of the then minister of roads and highway for the inspection of the project.

“As at December 2011, the project had exceeded the expected completion date by 25 months and the works was about 88% completed. The estimated cost had already shot up to GHC120m representing an increase of about 217%”.