The Chairman vented out his irritation and annoyance on those projects at the start of the Committee’s 15 days nationwide oversight visit to road construction sites which commenced with a thorough assessment on all trunk and township roads in the western area on Wednesday 4 May 2016 coupled with another planned visits to the provinces, and whole exercise is expected to end on May 18, 2016.
Explaining the significance of the visit, Hon Kombor Kamara, averred that, the Committee is comprised of members from both the ruling APC government and the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party, and that, it is mandated by law as embedded in the National Constitution to conduct an oversight function on all road construction work being undertaken throughout the nook and cranny of the country to make certain that, government and donor funds are used judiciously utilized for it intended purposes and for the good of the nation.
Hence, the stopover was to unearth factors responsible for the delay in the completion and the handing over of some of those projects within the stipulated which timeframe, and at the same time conduct a comprehensive assessment of quality of work done including the drainage systems.
Furthermore, the exercise is also aimed to ascertain whether the project designs are strictly followed by contractors including their scope of work and look at the variation cost in order to minimize financial wastages, and see how best the committee can help address the bottlenecks hindering the successful implementation of the road projects in the country.
During the committee’s five days tour in the western areas, it was glaring that majority of these contractors have renege on their contractual agreements as most of these roads that should have been handed over are yet to be completed with absurd reasons for their non completion, couple with the poor drainage system that causes massive flooding in certain areas and destroyed household properties worth millions of Leones especially during the raining season.
Nonetheless, Hon Kombor s stated in no uncertain terms that, the committee will not take kindly to the lethargy and vicious manner at which these contractors are treating their road project in which the government allocated billions of Leones for their construction.
‘It is evidently clear that these roads are badly needed by the people, hence, we will not sit back as the people’s representatives and watch thing go bad, especially, when the country is in dire need of better road network to help ease the traffic congestion, as well as confronting the challenges facing road users,” Hon. Kombor fumed
The committee has left Freetown for the provinces to undertake similar inspections exercise on all trunk and township roads under construction.