Head of Transportation BRRI or LUV FM must fix this Error. I have read with shock some comments made by my friend Dr. Ackah Head of Transportat
Head of Transportation BRRI or LUV FM must fix this Error.
I have read with shock some comments made by my friend Dr. Ackah Head of Transportation, Building and Road Research Institute that Contractors should be blamed for poor road designs.
https://www.myjoyonline.com/blame-contractors-for-ghanas-poor-road-designs-transport-engineer/
It must be clearly stated that when it comes to professional opinions, friendship does not come into play. I call a spade a spade and I am always ready to subject the discourse to the most rigorous intellectual scrutiny devoid of politics and mischief.
To set the records straight, I strongly believe that Dr Ackah got the fundamentals wrong. How can you blame contractors for poor road design. I Doubt he said that, but if he did this is very unfortunate, unfair and very misleading. It is essential we equip the general public with the right information to know what roles the different stakeholders play in road construction. ( The article says he said that, I have shown the evidence)
As a consultant with experience in land use transport planing, traffic engineering, pavement design, highways design, project financing, road Safety and the law I am sure I am very able to share my professional views and educate the public on the issue.
First and foremost, it must be understood that all roads in the country come are under three Agencies. These are the Ghana Highway Authority, Department of Urban Roads and Department of Feeder Roads. One could add private roads and accesses which are exclusively not accessible by the general public.
For all the three Agencies, they are responsible for deciding what road is to be constructed subject to approval by the Minister and the government. These roads whether they are new roads or rehabilitation of existing roads would have the engineering design drawings specification and the items)activities in Bill of quantities (BOQ)prepared.
The design engineering drawings will be readily available and prepared by the Agency’s engineers or their respective agents ie Design engineering Consultants. The agencies have the right to solicit for the services of Road Design Engineering consultants to prepare the drawings on their behalf. Legally these consultants are agents of the Road agency, this means that the Road Agency is still technically and legally the owner of the road designs.
The BOQ with items/activities are made available to the general public. These ’empty’ BOQ are procured at a nominal fee by contractors and they thereafter fill it with their rates yielding final cost of project. These are submitted by respective competing contractors and the best contractor is selected upon tender based on an established evaluation methodology. This is the process. If there are compromises in the process is a good topic to discuss.
What Dr Ackah is saying is that because of politics the evaluation is compromised and incompetent contractors are awarded contracts. I am not here to dispute that. What I am sure is that on paper the contractors present the appropriate requirements to meet the evaluation or some professionals on the evaluation fail to do due diligence and award contracts to incompetent or unqualified contractors. This he suggests is with political influence. My write up is not to argue this assertion by him.
The fundamental crass of the discourse is whether Contractors are to blame for the poor design of our roads?
This is an emphatic no. I stand to be corrected. I am ready to be educated on this issue. The concept of Design and Build or Design, Build, Operate and Transfer (DBOT) is applicable as a contract type mainly for buildings. This type of contract maybe applicable in some road projects like Toll Roads but this practice is not currently common or existent in Ghana. It is therefore paramount to establish that road design of all our roads are not done by contractors. How do you therefore blame a contractor for a poorly designed road. This cannot be right.
One may argue that the contractors do not have the appropriate technical workforce to ensure that designs are implemented according to specification. That is a legitimate line of argument. That is reasonable and I can say is a fact. One can argue that because of the lack of appropriate technical staff, road contractors are not adhering to road designs per the contract. That is a fair point and that is logical.
I accept that contractors carry our shoddy works and do not meet their contractual obligations sometimes but the onus is on the supervising Engineer to bring these contractors to book to ensure the right thing is done. This is not design. This is non conformance to approved road design drawings which is absolutely different to road design.
Now assuming that the contractors are failing to adhere to the implementation of Road Designs, there is always a Project Consultant/Clients Supervising engineer to ensure the contractor is constructing the road to specification of design drawings. Is this a fact or it is not. It is these professionals who approve worked carried out by the contractors. They sign documents and write reports to attest that the contractor has carried out works consistent to standard procedures and in conformance or adherence to design specifications.
This clearly means that it is the client’s agents who approves milestones in road construction by the road contractor. How does one turn around to blame the contractor when the supervising engineer who is the agent of the road agency has approved works.
If anything at all, without recourse to legal knowledge, the layman can clearly see that at best the Supervising Engineer has been compromised if not incompetent. It is either or both.
With all these said it is important to acknowledge that there are fundamental problems in the road sector in terms of getting adequately trained technical personal on the road sector.
It is high time that the road industry is sanitized and this can be done through education and training. The onus is on public institutions such as Building and Road Research Institute to start providing pragmatic solutions to solve our challenges.
My friend Dr Ackah, I disagree with you that Contractors should be blamed for poor road design. It is high time we set the records straight on these issues. Our roads have become death traps and one of the major problems is as poor road design and non adherence to established Design standards.
The objective is to clearly set out categorically that the contractor is not responsible for the design of our roads.
To conclude, as an Independent International Road Safety Auditor Consultant, I have never in my professional sphere had discussions with a contractor on making any changes to the design at the Concept stage, draft Engineering Design, Draft Final Engineering Design or Final Engineering Design stages.
This well established protocol exonerates the contractor from any design liability issues. The contractor purely follows what has been designed.
Don’t blame the contractor, blame the Road Agencies for poor road design and/or supervision and the current poor unsafe state of some of our roads. Let us call a spade a spade. We must make our roads safe, we must save lives
Dr Ackah, I will pass by the office when I get time and I hope we can brainstorm on one or two issues. We are ‘paddies’ but i disagree with you.
By Hon. Ing. Kobby Amoa-Mensah
The writer is Professional Member of: Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation(UK),Institute of Engineers(Ireland),Institute of Highways Engineers (UK).
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