The Minister for Roads and Highways, Kwame Governs Agbodza, has raised concerns over severe staffing shortages within agencies under the Ministry, warning that inadequate personnel are affecting the supervision and quality assurance of road projects across the country.
Addressing Parliament’s Select Committee on Economy and Development, the Minister revealed that the Ministry has requested the recruitment of about 1,000 additional staff to strengthen oversight and improve the delivery of road infrastructure projects.
According to Mr. Agbodza, the shortage of engineers, quality assurance officers, and other technical professionals has left many agencies overstretched, making it difficult to effectively monitor ongoing projects despite significant government investment in the sector.
“The staffing level of the agencies is far less than what it should be. If you consider the fact that we are investing heavily in these projects, part of the reason some of the projects suffer quality assurance is simply because we don’t have enough people to monitor these projects,” he told the committee.
The Minister attributed part of the challenge to the creation of six new administrative regions, which expanded the workload of road agencies without a corresponding increase in staffing levels.
As a result, technical departments responsible for project inspection, monitoring, and compliance have been forced to operate with limited personnel, raising concerns about the effectiveness of project supervision.
Mr. Agbodza disclosed that approval has already been granted for the recruitment of 137 staff members for the Ghana Highways Authority, including engineers and quality, safety, and environmental officers. However, he stressed that the staffing challenge extends across the entire roads sector.
“We’ve got approval for 137 staff at various levels, QSEs, engineers and everything, but that was just for highways. The Chief Director has since submitted a request for about 1,000 because we created six new regions and didn’t actually staff them with new staff,” he said.
The Minister emphasized that addressing the personnel gap is critical to ensuring value for money in road infrastructure investments and improving the quality of projects delivered to the public.
He assured lawmakers that efforts are ongoing to secure the necessary approvals to boost staffing levels, which he believes will significantly enhance project monitoring, quality control, and service delivery across the sector.
Source: Mavis Fantevi