Sidney Abugri Writes: Talk about puzzles

George Sidney Abugri

Every election year road infrastructure appears to suddenly become a silent bargaining chip in a secret conversation between voting constituencies and campaigning politicians. This season around, I fancy a rant about roads too!

There is more to road construction than the provision of wide earth surfaces between destinations for motorists to drive vehicles on.

The rainy season always exposes the road construction swindle: Such is the appalling quality of work on some roads, that the national road network is usually washed clean by the rains and there is often not a millimeter-square piece of asphalt left for motorists to drive on. What is left of the roads usually look like bombed-out bush tracks in a war zone.

Minister of Roads Kwasi Amoako Atta this week vowed to ensure that all road projects started across Ghana during the administration of President Akufo-Addo are completed on schedule. He threatened to terminate all road contracts which contractors appear incapable of completing. That would mean re-awarding the contracts and re-scheduling their completion, anaa..? Successive governments have kept doing that and the problem of a bad national road network persists.

How does the problem of incompetent road contractors come about since government contract tender boards are supposed to ensure that contracts are awarded on merit and to the most competent bidders?  Could it be that good roads of durable riding quality usually mean no road contracts for a long time and that makes the “ways and means” and the “connection” people broke and starved of the good things of life?

Sometimes, it is the case that a road contractor of sorts, who counts among his equipment, two buckets, one shovel, a broom, and a wheelbarrow, is awarded a government road contract which he takes more than a millennium and three centuries to begin work on, and an eternity to complete if he ever does.

I propose a solution to the problem: Take all the steps necessary to push up the rate of compliance with road project completion deadlines and make sure contractors adhere to technical specifications. Technical specifications here refer to such features as the thickness of road asphalt, quality of materials used, road width, and width and depth of drains and gutters.

If contractors succeed in using sub-standard materials or vary technical specifications in a bid to illegally maximize profits or recover money spent on paying tips or bribes or whatever you call such inducements, hold supervising engineers responsible.