Masahudu Ankiilu Kumateh
3 December 2008
The Association of Road Contractors (ASROC), Ghana, has signed a grant of $57,365 pact with the Business Development Services (BDS) Fund, to undertake projects in the construction industry.
These projects are the development of a comprehensive membership database for the ASROC's National Secretariat in Accra; the development of a manual of rates build up for use by members of the association, and capacity-building and training programmes for members of ASROC, in the areas of contract administration and enhancing site operations. "Since this is a matching grant, ASROC, on its part, will be required to contribute an amount of $24,585, representing 30% of the total cost of undertaking the three projects. This brings the total cost of projects to $81,950 to be disbursed in two installments of 30% on inception and 70% on completion."
The ASROC also used the occasion to sign separate contracts with two service providers, whose proposals for the projects were approved by the BDS Fund. These are the Saatech Computer Services Ltd, which would execute the database project, while the Foreign Trade Institute also undertakes the remaining two projects. Speaking at the signing ceremony, the National Vice Chairman of ASROC, Mr. Joseph Ebo Hewton, expressed the association's appreciation to the Business Development Services Fund for their gesture, saying "this will go a long way at helping resolve some of the critically important issues confronting the association." He hinted that, currently, the association faced numerous challenges that continued to make it extremely difficult for it to efficiently discharge its mandate.
These challenges Mr. Ebo Hewton mentioned as delays in getting payment for contracts executed by their members, lack of access to funds, severe competition from better endowed foreign firms, among others. The Fund Manager of the BDS Fund, Mr. Alexis Fritz Kwabena Aning, who signed for his organisation, gave the assurance that the government was doing every thing possible to raise the capacities of local contractors, hence the fund's intervention.
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