Ignore minority’s calls for Tema Motorway expansion project to be cancelled - Roads Ministry

• The roads ministry has urged Ghanaians to ignore calls by the Minority for the Tema Motorway expansion contract be cancelled

• Kwasi Amoako-Attah announced the agreement will see the Tema Motorway converted into three lanes

• The project, expected to start in December, is to cost $570 million

Following the Minority in Parliament’s calls for the immediate abrogation of a $570 million Tema Motorway expansion contract with Portuguese company, Mota Ingil, the Ministry for Roads and Highways has said that the claims are untenable.

The Minority, led by Member of Parliament for Adaklu, Kwame Governs Agbodza, had stated that parliament was sidestepped in the deal, while stating that the Portuguese company has failed to mobilize funds for the project as required, compelling government to fall on the Ghana Infrastructure Fund.

Last year, Kwasi Amoako-Attah, the sector minister, announced that the agreement will see the Tema Motorway converted into three lanes.

But responding to the calls by his colleagues on the other side of the House, the minister has asked that Ghanaians ignore the claims that the government did not follow the laid down processes in awarding of the expansion contract, reports citinewsroom.com.

As a constitutional provision, deals of this nature require international business and economic transactions to be ratified by parliament.

The Minority has accused Kwasi Amoako-Attah of sidestepping the House in the contract awarded under the cloak of approval from the Public Procurement Authority, describing it as illegal.

They had also argued that since Ghanaian contractors have the capacity to execute the project, they should be given the project to handle but the ministry, through its Public Relations Officer, Nasir Ahmad Yartey, has insisted that pen is yet to be put to paper on the contract.

He assured that “We are not going to commence any project for now. When we are ready with the financial contract, it will first go through Parliament for approval. The Ministry is a very responsible one and will do everything according to the law.”

Nasir Yartey also explained the dynamics of the agreement, adding that the project is expected to commence in December of this year.

“The agreements are in two parts, the commercial and the financial. The financial agreement will have to go through Parliament. Without the financial agreement, there’ll be no money to commence the project. The commercial agreement is what the Ministry entered into in December last year. It is after we have got a financier for the project and entered into a financial agreement that the agreement will be taken to Parliament for Parliament to scrutinize and approve of it before the project can commence,” he further explained.

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