The Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwame Governs Agbodza, has called on the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to strengthen collaboration with road contractors by expediting the relocation of utility installations along major road corridors.
According to the Minister, delays in relocating electricity poles, water pipelines and other utility infrastructure continue to slow down the execution of critical road projects across the country.
Mr Agbodza made the appeal on Wednesday, July 8, during an inspection tour of ongoing road projects in the Eastern, Volta and Oti regions.
He explained that although road contracts make provision for the relocation of utility services, the process often becomes challenging when the associated costs are excessively high.
“We will just appeal once again to Ghana Water and the Electricity Company of Ghana to assist us to do the relocation of these services because they are the ones that are likely to delay the project,” he said.
“We have enough time to move those things, and we always have some amount of money in the project for this relocation.”
The Roads Minister noted that in some cases, the cost of relocating utility installations accounts for a significant portion of the overall project budget, creating additional challenges for contractors.
“It becomes rather difficult when sometimes the cost of the relocation is almost one-third of the project. It’s as if you don’t even know whether we are doing a water project with the road project or doing an electricity connection project,” he remarked.
Mr Agbodza stressed that closer coordination between utility service providers and road contractors would help eliminate avoidable delays and ensure that road projects are completed on schedule.
