The Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry has questioned the timeliness of the Vice President's proposal to allocate three percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the private sector for infrastructure projects.

In an interview on Joy FM's Newsnight on Wednesday, August 7, the Chief Executive of the Industry, Emmanuel Cherry expressed skepticism about why the Vice President did not implement the proposal in the present administration.

Mr Cherry pointed out that the Vice President has been in office for over seven years and it could have been implemented at ease.

"The person behind this proposal is no new person to us, he is the Vice President of the land as we speak for over seven years. If all these ideas are there what stopped him from posing such ideas to his master to be implemented for this while… is it now that he is coming up with this?” he asked.

• Read also: Private sector key to financing roads – Bawumia

His comments come after the Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Dr Mahamudu Bawumia promised to allocate three percent of GDP in favor of the private sector to take up the lead role in infrastructure development in Ghana if he gets the nod to be president.

According to him, this will help address challenges in the road sector.

"As a candidate, when I do my next budget, I am reducing government expenditure by 3 percent of GDP in favor of the private sector.

“This will help to realign expenditure from the public sector to the private sector, three percent of GDP is not small, you are talking about thirty billion Ghana cedis and most of that will be into infrastructure and roads,” he promised.

"So that you want the financing to be by the private sector, and that therefore reduces the burden on government and creates fiscal space at the same time," he added.

Mr Cherry noted that the private sector has significantly supported the government by raising necessary funds for infrastructure development, contributing to the government's notable achievements in this area.

However, he also criticized the government for undermining the sector, causing a loss of capacity and difficulties in recovering invested funds.

The Chief Executive called for the Vice President to present a clear plan for paying contractors owed by the government and to outline a comprehensive approach for further infrastructure development.

"We are expecting him to come out and tell us that this is the formula I have to use to pay contractors who we have owed for this while and this is the approach we are going to use to add on in the infrastructure space that has been left unattended to,” he said.