PIAC rejects oil funded market project
The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) has rejected a market project sponsored with oil revenue through the Annual Budget Funding Amount [ABFA].
The project located in Pokrom in the Akwapim South District in the Eastern Region has been poorly executed according to the Committee.
The Committee is therefore calling on the contractor, Mass Premium Limited, to get back to the site and get the market fit for purpose.
The rural market project with storage and mechanised borehole received more than GHC 581,000 from the 2020 annual budget funding amount. The ABFA is the amount of petroleum revenues allocated to support Ghana’s annual budget.
According to the Public Interest and Accoutability Committee, the facility which has been reported as fully completed by Mass Premium Limited, is below expectations and needs to be worked on again.
Alhaji Ahmed Anderson, a member of the Committee who led the delegation to the project site described the work as unacceptable.
“This is way below our expectation, works here have not been built to a standard that we can say it is value for money. You could see the floor that we visited have cracks all over. When you have such a situation even before the completed project is handed, then that’s just unacceptable and it doesn’t order well for proper development,” he said.
Efforts to speak with officials of the Assembly turned futile as the Municipal Planning 0fficer of the Assembly who accompanied the team on the inspection tour declined to comment on the issue.
Assembly member of the Pokrom Nsaban Area, Amedi Ahwereng, is calling on government to intervene in getting the contractor back to complete the work.
Speaking to the media he said, “You know how critical this market will be to us, because most of our people are farmers and we don’t have a good facility to sell our produce. But let me say clearly that the job done by the contractor is abysmal.”
“We have tried to reach the consultant to get them back to work but all efforts failed. We need government to do something about the situation because we really need the market.”
Meanwhile, the the entire contract cost is about GHS 924,000 as reported by the Ministry of Finance.
The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) is an independent statutory body mandated to promote transparency and accountability in the management of Ghana’s petroleum revenues.
