The Minister of Local Government and Rural Development , Alhaji Collins Dauda , according to a Ghanaian Times report has ordered three contractors to report at his office on Thursday, to explain the cause of the delays in the implementation of projects awarded to them. According to the report, the minister expressed disappointment over the slow pace of work on three key development projects of the Ministry in the Ho municipality.
Three of the contractors, Big Oman Limited , Santa Barob Ventures and Albisah, the report continued, are executing the GH¢ 12.5 million Ho Central Market Redevelopment Project while Say Construction is undertaking the GH¢4.6 million abattoir project at Sokode -Gbogame . Yantse River Engineering, a Chinese firm, is working on the GH¢8million landfill project at Akrofu.
Collins Dauda after touring these projects told journalists: I have seen it all, and I am very disgusted by what I have seen. He argued that the projects should have been completed in November last year, “and from what we are seeing on the ground now, it does not look like they can be completed before the end of this year.” Times further reported that public rancour over the delays in the completion of the three local government projects has been mounting in recent times.
Since all the projects mentioned fall under Dauda’s ministry, The Chronicle does not have problem with the decision to visit the sites and the concerns he expressed over the delay in the execution of the projects. It is, however, our considered view that Alhaji Collins Dauda was only trying to shed crocodile tears knowing very well the President would soon visit the region on campaign tour where the issue about the delay of the projects would be raised by the people.
The Ho Municipal Chief Executive works directly under Collins Dauda and by convention, he is supposed to report about the activities of the municipality to him (Dauda).
The Chronicle is, therefore, astonished that the Minister has to personally visit the projects before discovering that they have delayed. From the Minister’s narration, one can easily extrapolate that he is an armed chair minister who does not know what is going on in his own ministry.
It is instructive to note that Alhaji Collins Dauda is not the only minister that has done this. Some of his colleague ministers have also been using the same alibi to escape blame.
The construction of the Ho Central Market, and two other projects started two or three years ago, and the newspapers are replete with reports about the delay in the execution of the projects. Is Minister Dauda telling Ghanaians that even if his own MCE did not feed him with reports about the delay of the project, he too did not read the complaints from the residents that the projects have delayed?
In our opinion, the Minister is playing the game of politics with the Ho projects and others dotted all over the country. Whilst Collins Dauda was summoning the contractors to Accra, the consultants to the Ho market project was also telling journalists that certificates issued by the contractors for work done so far have not been honoured by the government.
This, he said, has contributed to the delay of the projects. Again is the Local Government Minister saying that he is not aware of the government’s failure to honour the certificates before driving to Ho?
As we stated earlier, Minister Dauda is doing nothing but politics because he knew about the situation but he pretended he did not know what was going on so that the public would not blame his ministry and the government as whole for the delay in the execution of the projects. This is pure hypocrisy!