Public Agenda (Accra)
Selorm Amevor
5 September 2008
A Ghanaian privately owned company; J.A Plant Pool Ghana limited has taken over the business of providing local contractors heavy machines and spare parts which are usually difficult to acquire locally.
Local contractors and users of heavy duty equipment usually spend huge amounts of money importing heavy duty equipments and spare parts as well as training people to operate these equipments.
According to the Management of the new company, it takes over the assets and liabilities of the defunct plant pool which hitherto used to perform similar functions to carry out the business of rentals and leasing of heavy duty equipments to local contractors.
Currently government has indicated that over the years numerous road development and maintenance projects which have been awarded to local contractors have been stalled due to lack of appropriate and reliable road equipments.
Speaking at the official launch of the company in Accra, the Deputy Minister of Road and Transport, Mr. Magnus Opare Asamoah lauded the company for the initiative and was optimistic it would solve the numerous challenges of local contractors.
"In deed the bane of the local road construction industry is inadequate and ageing plants, equipment and the low technical capacity of those who operate in the industry," he said.
According to him many minor rehabilitation, upgrading and maintenance road projects which were awarded by the government to local contractors have either been delayed or abandoned because of the lack of proper equipment.
He indicated that a study conducted into the performance of the local road construction industry shows that inadequate road construction equipment, poor management practices, lack of capital, inadequate human resource and inadequate supply of chippings and bitumen have all conspired to affect the performance of local road contractors.
The Deputy Minister said that the government in its effort to salvage the situation went into a collaborative program with the National Investment Bank and Messrs Multi-Tech for the importation and allocation of Volvo road construction equipment to some local contractors but unfortunately it could not cover all of them.
The General Manager of the company, Mr. Emmanuel Amofa said that the company represents world acclaimed manufacturers like, Yutong, Hubei, Sinotruk Howo, HBXG, XCMG, Dongfeng, Mahindra, Ashok Leyland among others.
He indicated that the company has well equipped workshops in Accra and other regions to do after-sales services, and a showroom stocked with spare parts for sale internally and to the general public.
According to him the company is driven by a customer satisfaction philosophy complemented by an array of heavy duty equipment, sanitation and trucks that are designed to meet the needs of all levels of road and civil construction, sand and stone winning, waste management, estate developers, mining and agriculture sector.
"We are determined to take the vanguard position in our sector of operation to promote prosperity in the aforementioned sectors of the economy," he added.
In that line he said the company has set up a Training School to train 3rd year and HND Mechanical Engineering Polytechnic graduates free of charge to expand their knowledge on the usage of earth moving and trucks technology.
He announced that within the next two to three months they would set up four major service centers in Accra ,Takoradi ,Kumasi and Tamale which will all be resourced with modern workshop tools to respond to the after -sale services needs of customers.
The General Manager urged the government to develop a more strategic policy framework to help the heavy equipment industry move forward.
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