Some aggrieved contractors are threatening to lock up about 766 public school facilities that they were contracted to build if government does not make any frantic effort to pay them for their work by June 26, 2019.
The contractors are also threatening to embark on a demonstration across the regional capitals to make known their concerns of unpaid arrears, some of which dates back to 2016.
To share their plight with the public, coalition of associations that included the Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors and the Association of Conscientious Public Sector Contractors organised a joint press conference which was held in Accra on June 11, 2019
Acting as a spokesperson of the associations, Mr Richard Nyarko said that contractors are not politicians and for that matter should not be made to bear the brunt of change in government where some members have been deprived of earnest living.
“We are not politicians; we are Ghanaian business men and women who are doing honest work for a living. Our hitherto happy and cohesive homes are falling apart. Our children are being sacked from school for non payment of fees and our marriages are collapsing” he said.
He also added that the delay in payment has resulted in the piling up of debts that take the form of accruing interest on overdue loans and financial obligations to state institutions such as the Ghana Revenue Authority and the pension members
Mr Nyarko shared the precarious situation of some members by saying that while some were being hounded by banks, others were incapable of seeking medical care for conditions triggered by the debt crisis.
“Others, whose houses and properties have been seized, have demented and prowling around like wraiths” he added.
He also indicated that attempts to get government to ease their plight have so far not yielded any result as the associations have written letters of appeal to state institutions such as Parliament, Council of State, Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) and the Ministry of Education among others.
The coalition has therefore appealed to government to desist from making pronouncements which go to suggest that they have been paid as those statements only to go to mount unnecessary pressures from debt collectors.
The group has also raised concern over the manner in which certificates from contracts awarded in the current regime were being honoured while some members do have unpaid certificates which dates back to 2016.
According to them, the apparent stratification of the nation along party lines is inhumane and at variance with the president’s Mantra of being a president for all.
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