Government has made an unprecedented move to pay all contractors that it owes money. It has released a whopping ghs2.2billion to cater for disbursements to all contractors with genuine certificates.
A statement from the Roads and Highways Ministry said ghs1 billion will be directly disbursed to the contractors while the remaining ghs1.2 billion is going into the Road Fund to cater for other debts owed by government. The statement which bore the signature of sector Minister, Kwesi Amoako Atta, indicated that disbursements have already started.
It said that the unprecedented lump sum released is the single largest in the entire history of the Roads sector of the country. The Ministry appealed to all contractors involved to return, as soon as possible, to sites where they are undertaking contracts for government and complete works that have been on hold, most of them, for the past 3 years.
Chairman of the Ghana Road Contractors Association, Daniel Attoh Agoro has welcomed the move saying it would help ease serious burdens that contractors have been enduring over the years. The Akufo-Addo government suspended all government contracts upon taking over from the Mahama government in 2017 with the explanation that it wanted to conduct audits into the contracts most of which it said did not look good for the country.
Over the months that the suspension has held, contractors have protested vehemently but the government had held its grounds. Apparently, the auditing is now over, paving way for government to pay the contractors. Many people will be expecting the government to publish the outcome of its 3 year long audit into the contracts that it inherited now that the audit is over.