If you paid GH₵49 bn why are contractors not working? GCCI shocked by Amin Adam

After the Minister of Finance, Dr Mohammed Amin Adam claimed that the Cedi’s depreciation was due to payments to contractors and Independent Power Producers, the Chamber of Construction Industry reacted, denying knowledge of the said expenses.

The Finance Minister during the Ministry’s monthly updates session on Friday, May 24, said the “complaints of no money…we don’t hear that anymore because we have paid and paid contractors. I think we have spent some GH₵49 billion. Same time last year, we did GH₵41 billion and so this demonstrates there’s a lot of Cedi liquidity in the market and we have seen some people looking for US dollars to buy with the Cedis that we have put out there.”

Amin Adam said the payment to the contractors and Independent Power Producers (IPP) are the reason why there is a shortage of dollars.

“…the payment to IPPs, you will recall that we started negotiating with them as a result of which we had to make a bullet, one-off payment amounting to some $400 million and so they all put pressure on the Cedi,” he explained.

However, Emmanuel Cherry, CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry disputed the figures saying if such payments were made to contractors then they should be on site working by now. He said the figures quoted by the Minister are surprising.

“In the roads and the building sector, if we should lump together the amount the Minister has mentioned now, I don’t know where exactly he is getting his figures from. So it is something that has hit us as a shock and a surprise.”

Mr Cherry questioned why contractors would pack out of sites if the government indeed made such payments. He revealed that the government owes contractors even now so coming to tell the public that it has paid that huge amount is shocking.

“If the minister claims that such an amount of money has been paid to the contractors then why are contractors not on site? Why have they moved from site? Why are they not working? That is the question we need to ask ourselves because as we speak today, road fund, government is owing contractors GH₵6 billion as we speak today.

Emmanuel Cherry also added that the total government debt to contractors is not up to the figure mentioned by the Minister. He said if what the Amin Adam quoted is true then it means there are other construction works ongoing that the Chamber has no knowledge of.

“So in fact the debt portfolio that you and I’ve been talking about, it is not up to that magnitude. Which means there is another leg of construction that is going on that the minister is trying to speak to that we don’t know. We need to interrogate the books properly and come out with the accurate figures accordingly because this is very outrageous to us,” Cherry told Top Story on Joy FM, May 24.