Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways, Stephen Pambiin Jalulah has disclosed that government’s failure to service loans it contracted led to the suspension of construction works on the Bolgatanga – Bawku – Pulimakom Road in the Upper East Region.
Speaking in an interview on A1 Road in Bolgatanga, Mr. Pambiin Jalulah said, for some time, government has not been able to service loans it contracted for the executions major infrastructural projects including the Bolgatanga – Bawku – Pulimakom Road due to the economic difficulties facing the country.
As a result, creditors have cut funding for most of these projects leading to the stall of work on them.
“We have different sources of funding for projects in Ghana and most of the huge roads that we built, the roads that involve a lot of investment, we normally do not have the money so we have to go outside the country to borrow from banks and we pay interest on this money.
So the Bolga-Bawku road is one of such projects which the government went outside to look for money to come and do it,” he stated.
“So because the government has stopped the payment of interest on its loans to all Foreign banks and financial institutions, those banks are not able to give money to pay the contractors who are working on our roads across the country. So if you have noticed that the contractor have left site, that’s basically the reason”.
He, however, indicated that government is in talks these creditors as part of the external debt restructuring programme and is hopeful of securing funding for work to be resumed on the road by the end of this month.
“As we speak now, the government is engaged the big financial institutions and hopefully by the end of this month, they would have finished with those negotiations and the payment will resume thereafter.
So the people of Bolga, Bawku and its catchment areas should rest assured that road is at the heart of Nana Addo and he will see to its execution,” he assured.
The Deputy Minister’s disclosure brings to a rest debate over why work on the project has ground to a halt.
There have been heated public debate over what might have led to the abandonment of construction works on the project by the contractor.
While the opposition National Democratic Congress blames it on government’s failure to meet its financial obligations to the contractor, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) insists government has not reneged on its financial obligations and that the contractor will return to site in no time.
