Vice President Aliu Mahama on Monday asked German road contractors to form partnerships with their Ghanaian counterparts to make them competitive to win big contracts in the country and the West Africa Sub-Region.

The Vice President, who said this at the Castle, Osu, when he received a nine-member delegation of road contractors from the Free State of Saxony, Germany, noted that Ghanaian contractors would benefit from the expertise and technology transfer when such relationships were formed.

"There are enormous benefits from such joint partnerships for your mutual benefit. Indeed, it would be a win-win situation," he said. The one-week visit of the delegation was facilitated by the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), as part of its programme to build the capacity of Ghana's contractors to improve the quality of their output.

Vice President Mahama said the Government was pleased with GTZ's assistance because it wanted the capacity of local contractors to improve to enable them to benefit from World Bank and other donor funded projects.

GTZ has over the past two years; sponsored local training for contractors to build their capacity as well as exchange programmes to Germany on internship. It would sponsor 10 contractors and engineers to visit Germany soon as a follow-up to the trip of their German counterparts.

Vice President Mahama said Ghana needed expertise to effectively manage quarries to support construction on a sustainable basis and urged the Germans to provide support in that area.

The Leader of the delegation, Mr. Ulf Richter of the Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs, said members of the group, who have specialised in various fields of construction, such as extraction, machinery and logistics and international construction, would look at their areas of interest for cooperation. He said details of their cooperation would be worked out during the visit of their Ghanaian colleagues in Germany.

Mr. Hans Maennchen, GTZ Project Manager, Road Maintenance, said several technical assistance programmes were being worked out to enable Ghanaian contractors to excel in road construction and maintenance.

Mr. Johannes Twumasi-Mensah, Chairman of the Association of Road Contractors, lauded the support they were receiving from GTZ, which had also helped to develop their website, as very beneficial. He said three contractors left for Germany on an exchange programme two weeks ago on a four-month advanced training in road construction, engineering and maintenance.