President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
National President of the Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors of Ghana, Prosper Yao Ledi, has charged the government to end the unwritten policy of “political parties coming to power with their own contractors.”
To him, such behavior affects the construction industry which is key in nation-building. “It looks like in this country all the political parties come to power with their own contractors which should not be the case. Aside from training and education, the capacity of local contractors can be built from the contracts they execute.”
On his accord, the various political parties in the country are using the job of contractors and engineers as political tools, and “this affects the work of the actual professionals in the industry,” he told Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show.
He revealed, “Anytime a political party comes to power, its members register to become contractors and that is wrong. We are building a nation and we cannot sit down and watch each political party come to power with its own staff. Can we have teachers, nurses, and soldiers being changed every 4 years?”
Prosper Yao Ledi indicated that professional contractors are a constant in the country’s architecture compared to political ones.
Reacting to the Agenda 111 project which the President cut sod for, he mentioned that there has not been any tendering or bidding advertisement in the dailies, “but we hear these contracts have already been given out and this is something the association is questioning. As indigenous contractors, we have not seen any qualification or tendering process but because the government assured us of these contracts, we will patiently wait.”
The government has cut sod for the construction of hospitals under the “Agenda 111 project” on Tuesday, August 17, 2021.
The entire project includes 111 district hospitals, seven new regional hospitals, two additional mental health hospitals to be located in the middle and southern belts, and the redevelopment of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo first announced the project in April 2020 during his eighth update on COVID-19.
Presenting the 2021 mid-year budget review in Parliament on Thursday, July 29, 2021, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, also disclosed that the government had decided to execute the initiative in two phases, with the first phase being the processes completed.
The second phase, he said, was the actual construction of 88 district hospitals.