The Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors Ghana and Conscientious Public Sector Contractors has given t government a two-week ultimatum to pay all arrears due contractors nationwide or will be left with no other option than to embark on legal action.
According to the joint contractors’ association, many of their members cannot sleep at home because they are being harassed by creditors leading to bankruptcy, with some losing the houses they used as collateral and many have also lost their lives as a result of depression and heart attacks.
Speaking to the media in Accra yesterday, a co-chair and spokesperson of the association, Mr Richard Nyarko, said many contractors have lost their lives and livelihood because the government for four years have failed to pay them after work is done.
Mr Nyarko said the only crime of the Ghanaian contractor is to play their part in nation-building by partnering with government to construct roads, build schools and other infrastructural projects.
“While we supported the government vision of Free Senior High School policy after wiping out our bank accounts, borrowed from banks, friends and family to ensure that the government achieve his agenda, four years after, we are dying due to debts,” he stated.
The spokesperson said, as the government has been praised for achieving its agenda in the Free SHS policy, contractors who laid their lives to support it are yet to receive payment after building dormitories, bungalows, offices, roads, fence walls, E-blocks and many others.
“What is more painful is the fact that these buildings, roads, offices and the likes which are not been paid for by the government are happily been utilized students, teachers and others while contractors who committed their life savings to it are dying.”
The National President of the Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors, Ghana, Mr Prosper Yao Ledi, said it is sad that projects completed in 2017, 2018 and 2019 are yet to be paid as these outstanding payments do not attract interest in many cases.
“So as the value of the cedis depreciates, so goes the value of our monies. Truth be told, even if we get paid today the exchange rates losses, inflexion and bank interest rates will wipe out all the value of the money,” Mr Ledi stated.
He said “we contractors are not asking for cost-of-living allowances, we are not asking for a bailout but only asking for government to pay us for work done. We demand payment for our toil in service to the nation.”
“Let me tell you, as we speak, the vice chairman of the Greater Accra branch of the association is in the morgue and it was revealed that he died out of a heart attack. What it means is that if the government don’t pay us, we all will die slowly.”
“We are therefore calling on the government, GetFund, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Roads and Highway and others to speed up processes leading to their payment,” he stated.
