Bolga-Bawku-Pulmakom road: We won't accept your ineptitude, incompetence – U/E NDC to government

The Upper East Regional chapter of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has given government two weeks to either bring back the contractor working on the Bolga-Bawku road or risk seeing a riot of the people.

The leadership of the party held a press conference on 21st February 2023, at the party's Regional office in Bolgatanga.

The Party’s Regional Communication Officer, Jonathan Abdullah Salifu who read the presser indicated that they have given the government two weeks to either respond to their calls and bring back the contractor or risk seeing the people riot.

He said, “We believe that if president Akufo-Addo cuts down the needless expenditure through reduction of the size of his government, suspension of the needless National Cathedral project, and eschew the unbridled profligacy, it will make enough savings to complete essential projects such as the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Polimakom road, the Navrongo-Naaga road, the Chuchuliga-Sandema Fumbisi-Wiesi road, Missiga-Kulungungu road project among others.

“Again, our sources within the construction firm indicate that about four hundred (400) workers on the project have been laid off. This gives credence to the fact that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia-the led government have failed to honor its financial obligation to the contractors hence the reason they have abandoned site”, he stressed.

The Upper East Regional NDC also noted the recent suspension of work by the contractor was due to the government's reckless borrowing, careless expenditure, and insatiable penchant for corruption that led to its inability to pay the contractor.

“This government due to its reckless borrowing, careless expenditure, and insatiable penchant for corruption has led us all to this mess of economic quagmire.

“The people of the upper east region cannot certainly be the sacrificial lamb for this ineptitude and incompetence.”

Queiroz Galvao, the Brazilian contractor working on the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom Road in the Upper East Region, has packed out of the site.

The contractor in the early hours of Friday, 10 February 2023, packed all the firm's equipment and left the site without a word to his local workers.

Though authorities including the Upper East Regional Director of the Ghana Road and Highways are yet to comment on the matter, a deep-throat source at the corridor of the department who spoke to Class 91.3 FM’s Upper East Regional Correspondent Moses Apiah attributed the contractor’s exit to government's failure to pay the contractor some arrears after several appeals.

“It is not surprising that the contractor has packed out of site. The government refused to pay him despite numerous follow-ups. So should he just be working for nothing?

“How will he even pay for fuel for the machines? I was told he's going to a different country. But we wait to see a formal complaint from him through a letter", the source said.

He added that: “The contractor has already exported some of his equipment to far away East Africa, and might not return.

“We hope if the government is listening and really wants to complete this project, they will be able to pay the contractor. We wait to hear from him [contractor] [through] a formal letter as I said earlier.”

The project was expected to be completed in March 2023, according to Peter Dagadu, a consultant to the firm as work was around 44 percent complete somewhere in August 2022.

The 127-million Euro project began in 2016 and was expected to be completed in two-and-a-half years, but due to non-payment of arrears, the contractor withdrew his equipment from the site for about a year.

He was later brought back by the current administration in 2018 with a revised contract sum of 127 million euros against the preliminary contract sum of GHS613 million in 2016.

The project includes the construction of three new bridges at the Kulaa River at Bolga which was 30% complete, the Red Volta River at Tilli -80% complete, and the White Volta River at Kobore which was yet to start.