By Mustapha Sesay
The Permanent Secretary (PS) at the Ministry of Works, Housing and Infrastructure has blamed lack of government funding for its apparent failure in the housing and infrastructure sector.
In a testimony that sounded like a confession, Donald Ngebah told the parliamentary oversight committee on Works last week that the Ministry had not been able to do much in the area because of minimal funding from the government. He said the bulk of the money from government had been geared towards roads construction. But he said as a ministry they had managed to meet with few private businesspeople who expressed interest in investing in the sector.
This neglect by government towards the housing sector, coupled with the practice of selling low cost housing and government quarters mostly to Lebanese and other foreign businessmen, have forced city dwelling Sierra Leoneans to live in extremely high disaster prone areas such as hill tops and slum communities.
Mr Ngebah lamented that the Works Ministry had been isolated in the area of awarding of contracts for roads construction. He said as a ministry which was supposed to provide supervisory role to the Sierra Leone Road Authority (SLRA), they have been reduced to doing only the paper work when it comes to payment when such contracts were awarded.
“We have no member on the board of SLRA that award roads contracts,” he said.
However, Abdul Aziz Kamara, director general of SLRA, said his agency was in a good working relationship with the works Ministry, although he did not explain how this is so. Kamara revealed that they were currently supervising over 20 road construction projects across the country comprising both major and minor projects. He said because of the Ebola outbreak, most of the contractors had left the country, brining to a halt a good number of the road projects.
Some members of the oversight committee registered dissatisfaction with the performance of the SLRA boss himself, particularly with regards the area of contract awarding and implementation of road projects.
Bashiru Sidikie, MP, said some projects were not meeting expectations of Sierra Leoneans. “He (Kamara) is representing the government, he is our eyes,” the opposition lawmaker told the committee in a clearly irritated mood.
Another MP, Veronica Sesay, argued that the DG seemed to be “neglecting” his role in ensuring that contractors owned up to their responsibilities. She cited a number of bridges in her constituency in Moyamba, for instance, which were in bad shape, a situation she said had been made possible only because of negligence displayed by the road authority.
Sesay said as MPs they were the main target of constant bashing by their expectant constituents who believed that it was the responsibility of lawmakers to construct roads.
Kombo Kamara, MP, Chairman of the Works committee, decried wastage of government resources in the area of awarding of road construction projects. He said some projects targeting cleaning of drainage systems were mostly duplicated. He cited the Road Maintenance Fund (RMF) giving out contract to the youth Commission to undertake drainage cleaning while SLRA provides funding for the same purpose. Kamara viewed this as lack of cooperation between the two institutions, an accusation the SLRA boss admitted to.
© Politico 29/04/15
