The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Yaw Barimah has said government would not pay contractors who engage in shoddy work for their own selfish gains because it results in high maintenance and repair costs to the government.

"Let me assure that in the near future, we intend to hold consultants and contractors jointly liable for sub-standard work and fraudulent payments," the Minister told the National Executive Committee Meeting of the Association of Building and Civil Contractors of Ghana (ABCCG) in Accra yesterday.

His speech was read on his behalf by the Director of Policy, Planning, Budgetary, Monitoring and Evaluation (PPBMA) Unit of the Ministry, Dr. Thomas F. Agyepong. This is the first meeting between the Ministry and the Association since the present administration took over.

He said wherever a situation of that nature comes up, both the contractor and consultant would be blacklisted for award of jobs in addition to any other measures that may be taken. This, he said, shall be in co-ordination with the district assemblies because according to him, that is where the problem of shoddy work is most rampant.

He said the Ministry would establish a database on contractors working on government jobs and MDAs would be requested to assess contractors' jobs using specific indicators. These would be loaded into the data bank to be used as criteria to classify contractors before they are awarded contracts.

Mr. Barimah said the Ministry knows that contractors sometimes fail to perform or even abandon jobs due to the undue delays in payments for work done, and it is also a fact that some contractors have not been paid for work completed two or more years ago. "One reason for this state of affairs is the fact that projects are sometimes awarded without adequate budgetary provision to ensure prompt payment. Let me assure you that government will do everything to ensure that those contractors who have done genuine work are paid as soon as practicable," he explained.

He said government policy is that no projects shall be started in the first place unless there are funds to pay for it. This means government would undertake fewer projects at any point in time, but will ensure that the contractors who are working on projects are paid promptly.

The President of the ABCCG, Mr. Samuel Obeng expressed the hope that the contractors training centre which is to be commissioned soon would assist contractors to build up capacity to face challenges ahead in efficiency.

He called on the Ministry to support the local contractors in the country to build up their plants and equipment as part of contractors capacity building to enable them compete with the foreign firms.

He urged the Ministry to assist the association to flush out illegal contactors in the system since they do not contribute in any way to the association but rather benefit from the use of contractors agreements and property rights in the country.