Regional News of Wednesday, 16 February 2011

Source: GNA

Amasaman residents express worry about abrupt end of water project

Amasaman (GAR), Feb. 16, GNA - Some residents of Amasaman and its environs in the Ga West Municipality, have expressed concern about the abrupt end of a project that was meant to give them access to portable water.

A random sampling of views by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in the community gathered that the residents were levied between GH¢106 to GH¢= 600 towards the project, which was initiated in 2007 and being executed by K. Adu Construction and Plumbing Works.

The programme which was progressing in earnest came to an abrupt end, last year. When the GNA contacted the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Nii Armah Tackie, he explained that although the Assembly had no records on the project it held an emergency meeting to discuss it. The MCE said the meeting summoned the contractor to furnish the Assembly with the details of the project.

He claimed that although the contractor submitted his proposals to the Assembly members detected some anomalies which included the fact that no agreement was signed before the project started while the contract sum was not known.

The number of people and communities to benefit from the project as well as the levy collected was not stated, while there was no official account to back it.

Mr Armah Tackie said another irregularity detected was that residents outside the reach of the project were also levied. He said the Assembly ordered the suspension of the project for a secon= d look to be taken at it. The MCE said the contractor was asked to furnish members with the details of the project proposal but failed to do so. He claimed that the decision the Assembly took on the project was give= n a political twist by an Accra FM Radio Station. The GNA made a lot of efforts to contact the contractor to respond to the allegations made against him but he failed to state his side of the story.