Collins Donkor interacting with workers at the quarry site
INVESTIGATIONS CONDUCTED by DAILY GUIDE indicates that a staff member of the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA) put in an exclusion clause in the bidding document of the Tema Motorway Roundabout project to sabotage quarry operators at Shai Hills in the Greater Accra Region.
The deliberate attempt is to prevent construction companies, especially the contractor handling the Ghanaian International Corridors, Grade Separation of Tema Intersection, from using quarry materials from metamorphic source of Shai area.
Interestingly, when DAILY GUIDE exposed the move, the Director of Contracts at GHA, Collins Donkor, stormed a quarry site at Shai Hills to collect samples of quarry aggregates for supposed laboratory tests.
Other official who accompanied him to the site claimed to be coming from Ghana Standard Authority said they were asked by GHA to conduct laboratory tests on aggregates in Shai zone as to whether it contains alkaline.
However, responding to a question as to whether GHA has initiated investigations into aggregates from Shai area, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ernest K. Arthur stated categorically that “Ghana Highway Authority has not sent a staff member to collect samples for lab test. The quarry owners reserve the right to cause the arrest of that staff that went to the area under the guise of GHA. They shouldn’t have allowed him.”
According to him, the director of contracts is not responsible for testing materials and we have not sent anyone to conduct any test on the authority’s behalf.
The CEO bemoans attempt by some staff of the authority to sabotage quarry operators at the Shai Hills range.
He indicated that his outfit had not sanctioned any processes to test quarry materials from the aforesaid metamorphic source.
But the boss of GHA has rubbished the matter after DAILY GUIDE publication highlighted the situation, stating that quarry aggregates from Shai area can be used for all major concrete, asphalt mixes and road construction works, thereby the directive is void and of no effect.
He explained the needlessness of the exclusion of aggregates from Shai as a long as it can be proven that tests conducted on such aggregates meet quality requirements in the specifications.
According to him, the exclusion of quarry material from Shai Hills is not the position of GHA or the Ministry of Roads and Highway.
From Vincent Kubi, Tema