The Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina, Francis Xavier-Sosu, has slammed the contractor working on the Ayi-Mensah, Danfa, and Otinibi stretch in the La Nkwantangang-Madina Municipality.
According to him, the contractor has refused to work on a GHC 11 million contract awarded to him with an expiration long overdue.
“If you have been given a contract and the duration has passed, what else do you expect to happen? How many times has this contractor promised to work on the road and has failed? What kind of measures he has even put in.place to reduce the pressure on the people who ply that route?” he quizzed.
His comment comes after some youth in the constituency on Monday prevented the police from arresting the MP who led them to block some roads as part of a protest to get officialdom to fix their roads.
He was invited by the police as the demonstration went on but his aide Abubakar Abdul Hamidu said “we resisted” the attempt by the police to arrest the MP.
He said his current whereabouts cannot be disclosed, adding: “The people were very united behind their MP.”
The protesters blocked the Ayi-Mensah, Danfa, and Otinibi stretch in the La Nkwantangang-Madina Municipality to demonstrate their frustration about the bad road.
The angry residents used boulders, rocks, stones, wood, and other crude structures to block the roads.
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But reacting to the development on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen show Monday, Mr Xavier-Sosu said he only led his constituency because it is his parliamentary duty and has not flouted any rule as claimed by the Police.
He rather turned his guns on the contractor working on the road.
The contractor in question, Ebenezer Kwame Boadi, speaking on the same show, said the contract was given to him in November 2020 and he started working on it in December 2020 but unfortunately it started raining, forcing them to stop.
On top of it, he said the materials they left on the site had been stolen by some unknown residents, a situation he said forced them to quit the construction till everything is resolved.
“We had to halt work on the site because we were disturbed by the rains and therefore dragged the issue. Some youth also took the materials and even used them to fill the roads and that has prolonged the issue,” he said.
Asked when he will go back to the site after the protest, he said the current rains have destroyed the roads and so urged the residents to be calm as they will start working on the road soon.
But Mr Xavier-Sosu, who was not pleased with the comment of the contractor, called the bluff of the contractor and said he would have sacked him if he (Xavier) was the one who contracted him.
“I would have fired this man if I were the one who contracted him to do work,” he said.