Chunk of Road Fund paid to contractors — Sector minister
The Minister of Roads and Highways, Alhaji Fuseini Inusah, has stated that a significant portion of the revenue from the Road Fund is being used to settle debts owed contractors.
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He explained that an indebtedness of GH¢336.14 million, mainly outstanding payments for works executed by road contractors, was carried into 2016.
Alhaji Inusah made this known when the Roads Ministry took its turn at the meet-the-press series in Accra yesterday.
He said the fund, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, had so far paid about GH¢350 million to road contractors, while GH¢70 million had also been paid under the cocoa roads improvement project.
“It should be noted that the recent increases in revenue to the fund will not yield an immediate impact on the condition of the road network, as a significant portion of the inflows will go towards the settlement of indebtedness to road contractors,” he added.
He said the mandate of the fund was to preserve the country’s road assets by prioritising maintenance and minor rehabilitation, among others.
Alhaji Inusah said settlement of the debts would provide an assurance of consistency of maintenance, which would eventually lead to improved condition of the road network.
Disbursements
Providing details, the minister said the fund allocated GH¢1.056 billion, representing 88 per cent of its projected revenue, to the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA), the Department of Feeder Roads (DFR) and the Department of Urban Roads (DUR) to primarily undertake routine and periodic maintenance works for 2016 and settle outstanding indebtedness.
“The fund also allocated GH¢1 million towards equipping the Ghana Police Service to improve road safety enforcement activities.
Road network
Alhaji Inusah said the country’s road network was continuously expanding through the creation of new districts and municipalities which hitherto did not have their road networks on the national inventory, adding that the recorded network size had nearly doubled over the past 10 years from 37,000 kilometres in 2000 to about 71,418 kilometres currently.
“This rapid expansion of about six per cent per annum that has resulted from more communities in the rural areas being connected to the feeder road network, missing links being joined to trunk road networks and roads in newly declared municipal and metropolitan areas being added to the urban road network requires even more resources for maintenance,” he pointed out.
Road Fund Board
Alhaji Inusah said the Road Fund Board would continue with the effective monitoring of projects and programmes to ensure that the road agencies met the stipulated requirements in the implementation of their maintenance programmes.
He said the enforcement of road regulations by the Ghana Police Service, with support from road users, was also expected to curtail misuse and indiscipline on the roads, such as overloading, unauthorised excavation and turning the roads into washing bays, to prevent premature damage to the road infrastructure.
“This will go a long way to help achieve optimum use of the fund,” he added.
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