Last week, in an interview granted the Daily Graphic, Mr Alban Bagbin, the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, sent out a strong warning to contractors, engineers and consultants who might play a role in the poor execution of projects paid for by the taxpayer.
According to the interview, the minister, who until his new appointment was the Majority Leader, threatened to blacklist all such bodies and individuals if it became obvious that they had, in their individual or collective capacities, flushed national resources down the drain by presiding over and paying for shoddy work.
What he did not add was that they could also face prosecution for wilfully causing financial loss to the state.
This is a warning which, under normal circumstances, should have sent many Ghanaians jubilating and dancing on the streets. This is because most of them are aware of the havoc corruption and incompetence had wreaked on this country. They know that many of our roads cannot withstand one rainy season because of poor engineering and construction work. They are aware that many public projects were never completed many years after millions of the taxpayer’s cedis had been expended on them, or so it was claimed because of corruption from the top to the bottom.
It is common knowledge that construction is one of the most lucrative businesses in the country, oiled by corruption in high places. It is an area you may put in very little but make a lot, provided those who are to protect the national interest become part of the conspiracy.
It is, therefore, not strange that some politicians consider it as a punishment if they are made ministers in ministries where they think there are not many contracts to be awarded. They may exclaim in despair, “How do we redeem our investment in the party and even make profits?”
Such is the destructive and corruptible nature of the monster called construction that even the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other multinational lending institutions have identified it, along with procurement, as a major source of draining developing countries of financial resources and a major contributory factor to poor and inadequate infrastructure in Third World countries, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa.
Apart from the heavy financial losses, corruption and inefficiency in the construction industry leave the country with poor roads that are washed away with the least drizzle, buildings that cannot withstand mild rainstorms, projects that are never completed or completed but cannot be made operational because of serious defects in the technical details.
Many projects that are being awarded today were awarded many years ago and paid for without the country reaping any returns on its investments. Meanwhile, the contractors and their collaborators in the ministries and consultancies have made their ill gains and go smiling all the way to their banks.
Mr Bagbin has set himself a huge task and he would need to plant his feet firmly in the ground if he is to make any impact. The naked truth is that the seeds of all the problems associated with construction that have bedevilled this country were planted and nurtured by those in the ministries who are supposed to make sure that the right things are done.
From the bureaucrats, the technocrats to their political heads, there is clear evidence that in one way or another they create the fertile grounds for the execution of shoddy work or sometimes total abandonment of projects.
If you talk to a good number of contractors, they confess that they themselves have become victims of these criminally minded corrupt public officers. Contractors with clear consciences who want to do good jobs very often end up bankrupt and compelled to do bad jobs or flee altogether, leaving the project half complete.
Otherwise, how do you expect a contractor to do a good job when he has to pay heavy bribes before winning contracts? How do you expect a contractor to execute according to specification when he has to pay bribes before the consultant approves his certificates? How do we expect the best from this contractor when, along the payment chain, from the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies, the regional co-ordinating council, the sector ministry, the Accountant-General’s Department, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and sometimes the seat of government itself, he has to be dropping envelopes all the way?
As a business person, nobody should expect a contractor to contract bank loans and spread it all over the place and go home empty-handed. The natural thing left for him to do is use poor materials, cheap expertise and reduced quantities of vital components to stay even.
Unfortunately, those who have been paid to ensure that the right things are done and that the country gets value for money have already soiled their hands and are, therefore, impotent to raise a finger. That is how the country has suffered over the years, saddled with many uncompleted and poorly executed projects.
Mr Bagbin’s warning had been heard several times in the past, raising the hopes of Ghanaians to dizzying heights. But the tradition has always been the same. The contractors are left alone, as is the case very often, to face the wrath of the people who, sometimes out of ignorance, may not even know that the contractor they have accused of abandoning a project or doing a bad job may not have been paid. The civil servants, consultants and their political collaborators, garbed in a sort of diplomatic immunity, are left to go scot-free to enjoy their booty, at the expense of national development.
It is only fair that Mr Bagbin is given the benefit of the doubt. Who knows, under a ‘better Ghana’ agenda, things will be different and it will not be long before the first names on the blacklist are published and the first batch of greedy and incompetent officers sent to the courts for supervising the construction of a bad road which led not only to financial loss to the state but also caused serious accidents claiming precious lives.
Until we see those signs, we can only hope that this is not just another political talk.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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