An Akufo-Addo-led government will eliminate corruption in the award of road contracts, a former Minister of Works and Housing in the Kufuor administration, Mrs Cecilia Abena Dapaah has said.
The governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) has continually trumpeted what it says are unprecedented gains in infrastructural expansion including the road sector.
But speaking to Class News about the NDC’s achievement in the sector on Monday October 31, Mrs Dapaah accused the government of corruption in the award of contracts and construction of roads.
“He (Nana Akufo-Addo) is saying there should be no corruption during his tenure of office. There is so much corruption within the award of contracts, sole-sourcing etc., and all these will be eliminated under President Akufo-Addo,” the former Bantama MP stated.
Meanwhile, Nana Akufo-Addo in a meeting with the members of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Monday October 31 said his party constructed more roads than the Mahama administration can boast of.
“When you make a relative comparison between the efforts we made between 2001 and 2009 and the efforts that have been made since, including the era of the Green Book, the records of the Ministry of Roads and Highways show that at the end of December 2015, 35 per cent of our road network was said to be in good condition, 33 per cent in fair and 32 per cent in poor condition. The road service condition was 42 per cent growth, 26 per cent fair and 32 per cent poor at the end of December 2008. So, immediately you see that the statistics are going the wrong way if you compare to what the situation was in 2008. There’s been a drop of 7 per cent of our network that was in good condition as of the end of December 2008,” he stated.
Nana Akufo-Addo added that: “The network size of the end of December 2008 was 67,291km. It has increased to 71,419km as of the end of December 2015. That is a mere increase of six per cent compared to the NPP period between 2001 and 2008 where increases were about 80 per cent because we moved the network from some 37,000 to 67,000 by the end of our period”.
“These are not my statistics; these are records available at the Ministry of Roads and Highways. …We are told we are seeing a period of unprecedented infrastructural development in our country and yet the statistics available in the country belie these statements. …I know there is a temptation that if you speak they will say this is a man whose whole family hold NPP card, so it’s not surprising he should be stating it, but this data I’m spewing is not my data, it’s data that is available to anybody who wants to verify and they are public data, they are public statistics at the Ministry of Roads and Highways but it tells you the commitments we have made in the road sector”.
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