Assembly members in the Mion District have rejected an executive committee’s recommendation for a payment of 241,000 Ghana cedis to a road contractor. The amount was to be payment for the reshaping and re-graveling of the Jimle, Chaagu and Jagbrung-Kuraa feeder road.
According to the assembly members, the project was not brought before the general house for deliberation even though it was tagged as an emergency.
Some of the executive committee members claim they raised concerns over the project and demanded that it brought before general assembly for deliberation. Immediately after the road was reshaped, heavy downpour washed away portions of it and collapsed the only bridge, compounding the residents transportation problem.
Assembly man for Jimle electoral area, Mr Iddrisu Amin told Zaa News, that even though his people mounted pressure on him for the road to be constructed, he was not consulted when it was given out for construction.
According to him, the planning officer and the coordinating director were not also aware that there was a contractor on site.
Mr Amin affectionately called “natural” explained that, an emergency was meeting needed to be convened on the road but that didn’t happened.
“We don’t know the contractor, we have never been provided with any document nor any valuable information about the contract. That’s the reason why we proposed a committee to be formed to get all of this information,” Mr Amin stated.
The assembly members during its second ordinary meeting on Thursday deferred the matter further together with over 770,000 Ghana cedis construction of a culvert at Sang Community Senior High School project.
Assembly man for Sambu electoral area, Mr Mohammed Abukari raised objections to the construction of the culvert at Sang new SHS project because according to him, the facility was never mentioned at any meeting and therefore shouldn’t be awarded such an amount.
Mr Abukari said ” I will even call for external auditors to look into issue.”
It was at this point that a letter from the ministry of education came up which was read by the presiding member, Mr Abubakari Yakubu.
The content of letter, among things, asked metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to extend access roads, water and electricity to new community senior high schools in their respective jurisdictions.
However, the assembly was still not in a mood to approve any spending measure, but insisting that the matter be deferred for subsequent meetings for deliberations.
But, the District Executive for Mion, Mr Dan Makandan urged assembly members to exercise restraint in discussing emergency matters. He told assembly members
Mr Makandan told assembly members that, no pesewas has been paid to the contractor and that as an auditor by profession he respect procedures involve in awarding contract, the Mion DCE however warned the assembly members about the dire consequence about their actions on emergency issues.
He said he intervened for the road to be constructed because of unbearable pressure from the beneficiary communities members including traditional rulers and the assemblyman for the area. The road, the DCE said,cut off the communities from others, affecting their activities, hence the need for the road to be put into good shape.
