The Minister for Transportation, Richard W. Anane, has voiced his concerns over the large number of delays in the road construction industry, which he premised on inadequate road plant and equipment. Speaking at the launch of J.A. Plant Pool (GH) Ltd, a sister company of Zoomlion, in Accra on Tuesday, the Minister commented that "since 2001, numerous road development and maintenance projects have been awarded nationwide to contractors, including our local contractors, but the execution and delivery of these projects have been delayed”. According to Dr. Anane, a study conducted into the performance of the local road construction industry indicated that poor management practices, lack of capital, inadequate human resources and inadequate supply of chippings and bitumen, were also factors affecting the performance of local road contractors. It was against this background, he indicated, that the government, in collaboration with the National Investment Bank and Messrs Multi-Tech, arranged for the importation and allocation of Volvo road construction equipment to some hard-working local contractors. “There is therefore, the need for other organisations, such as J.A. Plant Pool, and other individuals, to support the initiative of the government so that local contractors can be resourced to undertake the numerous road construction projects that have been advertised by the government,” he charged. The General Manager of J A Plant Pool, Emmanuel Amofa, explained that the firm was registered under the laws of Ghana in 2007, with its Head Office in Accra, and branches in all the ten regional capitals, and became fully operational in March 2008 with a total rental equipment of 23. J.A. Plant Pool intends to embark on a strategy dubbed 'Catch them Young’, an adage that says ‘the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow’. The company believes that if it is able to train many young engineers in the knowledge of our earth-moving equipment, these engineers will become the future leaders to promote the equipment. In line with this strategy, Mr Amofa pointed out that J A Plant Pool had set up a training school outfitted with state-of-the-art and latest audio-visual equipment to train, among others, 3rd year and complete HND Mechanical Engineering polytechnic graduates, free of charge, to expand their knowledge in earth-moving equipment and trucks’ technology. “Our objective is to create a large pool of mechanical engineers who will be readily available to undertake after-sales services wherever our products will be in the country. “We would therefore urge the government of Ghana to develop a more strategic policy framework to help the heavy equipment industry move forward,” he stated. Source: Statesman