The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has raised questions over the government's fumigation contracts with Zoomlion Ghana Limited, operated by the Jospong Group of Companies, citing a lack of transparency and failure to involve local authorities in the process.

The AMA says many of the contracts were signed without the input of key Assembly staff, making it difficult to confirm whether fumigation exercises reported to have been done were ever carried out.

The Assembly’s Director of Public Health, Florence Kuukyi, made these concerns public during an interaction with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Sanitation and Water Resources on Monday, 14 April.

“Just as the coordinating director rightly said, all these contracts are always signed at the blind side of the implementers,most of the time, you are just there and they’ll bring you a report ‘we’ve done this, we’ve done that,’” she said.

She added that officers are often expected to sign off on reports they had no involvement in.

“They don’t involve you in whatever they do. They only bring a report for you to sign as a witness. You can decide to sign or not. But whatever it is, they will be paid,” she stated.

Calling for a total review of the Sanitation Improvement Package (SIP) contract, Ms Kuukyi said local implementers must be given a role in monitoring sanitation projects.

“That is why we are hammering on the review and repackaging of the SIP contract, so that we, the implementers, can also have a say.

“If they are doing it right, we will know. If they are not doing it right, we will know. But I have never witnessed one fumigation. That is the issue. Yet they always bring reports saying fumigation has been done,” she noted.