LEKMA road construction underway as radio gets results

In what appears to be the media putting pressure on the government to deliver on its social contract with the people of Ghana, a campaign spearheaded by Accra based radio station Joy FM is beginning to yield the desired results.

The government, through the Minister for Information, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has announced a contractor has offered to fix the much talked about LEKMA road.

He disclosed that a Dubai-based company M/S DSR Holding Inc had offered to commercially fund the construction of the 7.5km road.

In a lengthy release, the government explained why the road commonly referred to as LEKMA road had taken so long to fix despite a yearly clamour by residents.

A statement made available to the press told of how the current contractor is set to become the third in four years after two previous ones failed.

The first was Malin Investment Ltd, awarded the contract in June 2015 and was expected to finish work by June 2017.

The contractor complained of payment delays during a period of more than a year in which he was paid more than ¢25,4m in four tranches by November 2016.

He abandoned site in September 2016 after he officially activated a clause that allows the company to suspend work over persisting delays in payment.

By May 2018, the Ministry of Roads and Highways re-engaged the contractor to continue work, paying his some ¢4.98m to continue work. According to the Information ministry he did not, compelling government to contractually terminate his work in July 2018.

Government’s dealing with Malin Investments is now a subject of out-of-court talks after the company sued for wrongfully termination with an outstanding ¢20.5m to be paid.

The second contractor M/S Hajaig Construction was engaged in September 2018 to complete the outstanding work and began on November 29, 2018.

But after “negligible progress”, the single-sourced contractor was fired. The new contractor M/S DSR Holding Inc comes as June 2019 marked four years after the first contractor was engaged to do the Teshie road project.

This will come as a huge relief to residents of the area who have complained bitterly about how the bad nature of the road has affected them health and economic wise.

The bad nature of the roads has destroyed vehicles and left residents with respiratory infections.