Government has maintained that, it has cleared more than half of arrears owed GETFUND contractors.
Following assertions by the contractors that, they had not been paid contrary to claims by President Akufo- Addo during last week’s media encounter.
“I’m being urged to pay contractors, I’m paying them. In 2017, nearly one billion cedis of which the government of Ghana provided three hundred odd million and the Road Fund provided some 660 million of the 1.6 billion owed road contractors was cleared. In January this year, we have dispersed 125 million out of the remainder of 600 million to the contractors,” the president said.
“Additionally, we have paid 826 million of the 1.2 billion loan contracted by the previous administration for which the Road Fund was used as collateral. It is important to note that all these debts were accrued under the previous administration. I will also point out that much of the statutory arrears that we met have been cleared,” he added.
Addressing, the media Monday morning, Minister for Information, Mustapha Hamid, reaffirmed the president’s assertion, saying GHC470 million of that amount has been paid to them.
“Government has taken note of a public statement by some GETFUND contractors that majority of them have not been paid. While we do not wish to engage them on a banter on semantics, we wish to reiterate that everything that the president said at his press encounter last Wednesday was a true reflection of the state of the state of government indebtedness to contractors generally. Out of the 1.6 billion cedis that the government owed to contractors,838 million was what was owed to the GETFUND contractors.470 million of that amount has been to the paid to them. There is an outstanding bill of 367 million to be cleared. So surely, the bulk of what was owed to GETFUND contractors has been paid,” he said.
Nana Ennmil Arthur/Beachfmonline.com/Ghana
