The company working on the Cape Coast-Twifo Praso road in the Central Region has not received any directive from the Roads Ministry to work on the deplorable road leading to the Kakum National Park.
Ernest Nii Okai Hammond, CEO of First Sky Construction, explained that the Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwesi Amoako Atta, only instructed them to return to the site to seal portions of the road that already had some bitumen cover.
“Per the instruction given by the Minister, he asked only that the first twenty kilometres which we have already completed and done the first layer of bitumen, we should come back and do the second layer; that has got nothing to do with the general completion of the project”, Ing. Hammond stated.
A week ago, Citi News reported the cessation of construction work on the road from Frame to the Kakum National Park, a part of the thirty-kilometre Cape Coast-Twifo Praso road under construction, is making movement on the stretch difficult, thereby affecting patronage of the Kakum National Park.
However, Citi News has sighted a letter dated Wednesday, April 11, 2018, signed by the Deputy Chief Executive of the Ghana Highway Authority in charge of Maintenance, K. Korankye-Adjei, copied to all Regional Highway Directors, instructing them to “submit a detailed status of all on-going or stalled Cocobod Funded Projects”.
The letter also asks directors to “immediately instruct the contractors on projects which have been completed to primer-seal levels to return to the site, reinstate the primer-seal sections and seal up to the length that were previously primer-sealed”.
Reacting to the instruction, Ing. Hammond said the letter did not mention the remaining untarred, bumpy Kakum National Park stretch.
He noted that technically, the June 30, 2017 letter, which suspended construction by the client, Ghana Cocobod, through the supervising body, the Ghana Highway Authority, still stands.
He also added that, “the contract we have signed, our paymaster remains Ghana Cocobod, and they have not per any letter I have sighted instructed me to go back to the site, unless of course, we can get alternative funding for the instruction provided”.
On when users of the Kakum National Park stretch should see a better road done, the First Sky Construction CEO said, “We are ever ready to move back to the site provided the suspension is lifted.”
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By: Joseph Ackon-Mensah/citifmonline.com/Ghana