Efforts to raise the standard of our projects would be to no avail if government continues to delay payment for work done. That’s according to local contractors who are lamenting government’s failure to pay them for the projects they have executed for almost a year now. The Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors says this is seriously affecting their business. The Technical Committee Chairman, Rockson Dogbegah tells JOY BUSINESS, their woes have been compounded by the depreciation of the local currency. “As government is unable to pay us, the banks are also not ready to give us loans to operate especially for government-projects. That aside, the effect of the depreciation of the cedi is affecting the value of the money even if our money is paid. To use cement to explain, the quantity of cement we could have bought some months ago (if we were paid) , we cannot buy the same quantity with the same amount of the money now” he noted. According to him, the issue if not imperatively addressed would only undermine the bid to improve the standard of works done by local contractors. “Here we are as contractors doing all we can to enhance performance and we are not getting government to do its side of the bargain. We have instituted a Construction Excellence Awards just to position Ghanaian contractors to be able to compete and perform any where on the globe. So if government does not support us by way of at least making prompt payment, then we nay not have the capacity to live up to expectation” Mr. Dogbegah concluded.