Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwame Governs Agbodza, has disclosed that the government owes road contractors an estimated GH₵21 billion in arrears.
Speaking at a press briefing on Tuesday, July 8, the sector minister attributed the mass withdrawal of contractors from project sites to the government’s prolonged failure to pay for completed works.
According to him, many contractors were forced to borrow money to pre-finance projects with the expectation of reimbursement. However, the absence of timely payments rendered continued operations unsustainable.
“At the time of transition, we are told that the majority of road contractors were actually off-site simply because they did some work, raised a certificate and were not paid. Some of them, as far back as 2018. Their certificates were not honoured, and so while they borrowed money, put in the work and were not paid, it was not feasible for them to continue to work.
“At the time of transition, we are told that the amount of money owed to contractors is about GH₵21billion. So you can imagine the scale of the problem we have in terms of why contractors are not on site,” he said.
However, the minister assured that the current administration is taking concrete steps to resolve the issue. He revealed that the government is set to settle GH₵4 billion of the GH₵21 billion to enable contractors to return to site and resume work.
“If you listened to His Excellency the President, yesterday he indicated that toward the end of this month, the Finance Minister will be taking steps to retire some of the debts owed to contractors so that they can go back to site and complete the work. On record, we are intending to pay some GH₵4 billion towards retiring part of the GH₵21 billion from this month,” he stated.
Credit: CNR