The Ministry of Works and Housing is bent on ensuring workers undertaking government projects are protected from injuries and illnesses.
Due to this, the sector Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has led the Works Department of the Ministry on routine visits to construction sites in the Abuakwa South ,unicipality to ensure health and safety protocols are adhered.
The Minister and his team first paid a courtesy call on the Okyenhene,Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin at his palace in Kyebi.
Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin called on government through the Ministry to spread development to rural settings by providing decent and affordable housing for government workers to improve their standards of living.
“I will urge you,now that you have become the sector Minister to looking at providing housing needs for teachers, doctors,nurses and essential public workers because some are from Kumasi and the other big cities and usually their focus isn’t where they work but where they came from” he appealed.
After the courtesy call, the team inspected projects such as the Kyebi Bronikrom Habitat – Drainage Works, construction site of a Modern Community Market Centre under the Ghana Secondary cities Support Program and the site of the Eastern Regional Fire Service Academy.
The Minister did not only monitor progress of work on government projects but also ensured the enforcement of health and safety protocols at these construction sites.
“The fact that some of the sites that we visited, they are not respecting the safety standards. These after a lot of caution from the assembly , the consultants and the rest so we are going to get a bit tougher on all of these contractors on site who do not comply with the health and safety standards.
So very soon we should be expecting to see the works inspectorate unit at many of these construction sites urging and where necessary asking the consultant to stop the contractor from working because if they don’t comply we are all at risk” he said.
He expressed discontent with contractors failure to supply the required safety acotruments to their workers while consultants look on with blatant disregard.
” We will be visiting a lot more of these project sites because as I am sure you may be aware of, there are a lot of projects going on all over the country and it is important that we who are seized with leadership will ensure that the consultants and contractors are delivering according to time and specifications and where the contractors have challenges, we see those challenges ourselves and our job is to resolve those challenges” he assured.
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