Contract awarding authorities in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis need to sit up, monitor and supervise contractors to who projects have been awarded.
If they relax in their supervisory monitoring duties, contractors will always do shoddy work and the taxpayers’ money would always go waste. If a contract is awarded to a contractor, it is important that he/she executes the project according to the specifications provided for in the contract and for which they append their signatures.
Some contractors in the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis need to be called to attention because of the shoddy work they are doing.
The authorities should ensure that the award of contracts do not end with the signing of the agreement. It entails monitoring and evaluation of the projects to ensure that the contractors give the clients and the people value for their money.
The late finance minister, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, once told this reporter that he could not sit in his office in Accra and be signing agreements without knowing how the tax payers’ money was being used .
Sharing some groundnuts (peanuts) with this reporter Mr Baah-Wiredu, after a tortuous tour of the region said in a more friendly manner “massa, the job is on the ground, not in my office, so lets go. I need to see things for myself”.
If those in charge of awarding contracts for the construction and maintenance of roads and other projects in the metropolis follows the example of the late finance minister, things would be different.
In Sekondi/Takoradi some projects awarded to some contractors are very poorly executed. A typical example is the Axim road roundabout, near House-Two, a popular spot in Takoradi, the Nkontopo township roads and other projects in the metropolis.
Between July and October the Axim-road roundabout had undergone maintenance more than 10 times. The contractor carries the bitumen in a wheelbarrow with the filler on the side.
The workers just dig the already bad spots, fill it with laterite and sprinkle the bitumen over it and in less than a week the road returns to its former shape or becomes worse.
At the moment, the Axim Road roundabout has developed into manholes worse than before. Motorists, especially first-time users of the roundabout, helplessly plunges into them resulting in their vehicles developing flat tyres.
In some cases, vehicles run straight into the roundabout in their attempt to avoid some of the manholes.
It is about time the engineers of the Urban Road Department of the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly lived to their calling and intensified their evaluation and monitoring roles to ensure that the right thing was done to justify the investment of the taxpayers’ money.
This is because apart from the shoddy work done on the maintenance of some roads there is currently the streetlight rehabilitation project going on throughout the metropolis.
Interestingly, some of the pavement slabs have been removed and streets excavated for the laying of cables. This has been done so hurriedly.
When Telecom Malaysia was contracted to manage Ghana Telecom and the service lines were upgraded hardly did one notice that the pavements had once been excavated.
It is important to establish a strong body or a monitoring section within the assembly to monitor and evaluate the execution of projects awarded by the central government or the assembly to ensure their conformity with standards.
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