Road contractors need effective supervision to avoid shoddy work done on roads – Ebo Hughton

The former Chairman of Road Contractors in Ghana, Ebo Hughton has attributed the lack of road supervisors at construction sites as the reason why the roads are in a poor state in the country.

He said funds allocated to road construction should be done proportionally and in addition, there should be “effective supervision”.

“Contractors will go and do the roads, and then one and a half to two years, it starts deteriorating. Yes, it is true. But where are the supervisors? Where were they? When these roads were being constructed, where were they?”

Citing some challenges regarding road construction, Mr Hughton stated that in 2015 and 2016, when contractors were given a contract, the only time supervisors inspected the roads was when the roads were ready.

This, he said was due to the lack of funds and monetary support for fuel to enable the supervisors to carry out unannounced inspections.

“So what do you expect? People will just do anything that they like and then when its time for payment, the engineers will come and just measure it and go away,” he said.

He added that, in order for people to do the right thing, engineers should be “provided with the wherewithal” to enable them to carry out their duties.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Monday, Mr Hughton told hosts Winston Amoah and Kojo Yankson that another recurring problem is contractors quoting low rates.

“Especially when there’s open tender, contractors quote very low and then they get to the site they realise that they cannot do the job. But ones a supervisor has been given to you, you’d have to do it according to the specification.

“So if the engineers are there to carry out these effective supervision, then nobody would go and quote low again to go and do any shoddy work. So it’s a whole lot of issues,” he said.