Cocoa Roads Contractors give Government one week Ultimatum

Cocoa Roads Contractors in the country have given the government up to Wednesday, October 31, 2017, to pay them for all road contracts they have executed over the last three years across the country, else they would face their wrath.

According to them, the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) then in opposition, promised to settle their debts within the first 100 days if voted into power but failed to honour their campaign promise.

Speaking in an interview with OTEC fm’s Evans Agyei Sikapa, a member of the group, Mr. Kwabena Yeboah, stated that government’s persistent refusal to pay them for contracts they have duly executed has made life unbearable for them, as some of the projects executed were pre-financed with bank loans and others with their own money.

According to the contractors, the government has always given them vain promises about its commitment to pay them.

“We have always been meeting representatives of the government over our contracts money and the story has always been that we should wait for some time for the government to pay us, we are now fed up and have to advise ourselves if government fail to pay by next week,” Mr Yeboah said.

He explained that they have been officially awarded contracts, met all requirements and regulations governing such contracts and completed these contracts, but up till now the government has not made any efforts to pay them for the contracts they have executed over the last three years.

He stressed that all their businesses have severely been affected for non-payment of these contracts, affecting their workers who depend on them for their survival.

‘’These workers that we have employed also have dependants and so they have been putting a lot of pressure on us to pay them because they can no longer take of their family, stressing that some of them had to always stay away from home to avoid their debtors coming to terrorise them’’, he fumed

The angry contractor described government’s inability to pay them as a worrisome.

“We go through hardship everyday to feed our family yet the government seems not to be listening to us” he cried.

Mr Yeboah questioned how government and COCOBOD are able to pay its auditors and other workers while turning its back on them.

Source, otecfmghana.com/Evans Agyei Sikapa