By Mavis Paintsil, Accra
The Minister for Works, Housing and Water Resources, Ahmed Ibrahim, has told indigenous contractors that the award of future government projects will be based strictly on the quality of their current delivery.
He said government is committed to building the capacity of local contractors to lead Ghana’s infrastructure development, but performance will be the benchmark.
Mr Ibrahim was speaking in Accra at a stakeholders forum organised by the Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry, GhCCI, on the theme: “Empowering Indigenous Contractors through Structured Projects, Contracting and Non-Contracting for Sustainable Infrastructure Development, Economic Growth and the Adoption of International Best Practices.”
According to him, empowering local contractors is critical to ensuring that the country’s huge investments in infrastructure benefit the Ghanaian economy and create jobs locally.
He said with major programmes such as the Big Push, the Accra-Kumasi Highway expansion and projects under the 24-hour economy policy coming up, there will be enormous opportunities for Ghanaian firms.
He however urged contractors to use the right tools and quality materials to deliver durable projects.
“Your re-assignment of another contract will depend on the quality of the job delivered,” he said.
Poor Performance Worrying
The Chief Executive Officer of the GhCCI, Emmanuel Cherry, said the forum was organised after the Chamber’s monitoring and evaluation exercises showed poor performance by some indigenous contractors.
He said it was important for stakeholders to identify the bottlenecks and find solutions to improve delivery.
“We need to engage, discuss this among ourselves, find the alternatives, making sure that we speed up our portfolio of project scope and deliver as expected, so that government must have confidence in the indigenous contractors,” Mr Cherry said.
He urged large contractors to embrace sub-contracting to fast-track project execution and share opportunities.
“A contractor must not be greedy. The other contractors have the capacity. You also have the capacity, but the capacity you have can only take care of a particular small stretch. So, what must you do? Open up and bring in others,” he stated.
Mr Cherry warned that if local contractors fail to improve, government may be forced to turn to foreign companies.
Communication Gap
The Chairman of the GhCCI, Nana Opare Kwafo, called for better communication within the industry to keep contractors informed about capacity building programmes, project management practices and major government projects.
Resource Sub-contractors
Delivering the keynote address, the Managing Director of SLB Consulting, Dr Shelter Lotsu, charged major contractors to provide sub-contractors with the needed resources to work effectively without waiting for government disbursements.
He said stronger collaboration and timely resourcing will improve project delivery and make indigenous contractors more competitive.
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