By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Feb. 12, GNA – The African Continental Union Consult (ACUC), an African governance think tank, has commended President John Dramani Mahama for involving engineers of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) on infrastructural development.
The President had earlier ordered the GAF engineers to construct a bridge over a stream at Asuokow in the Eastern Region, in response to a viral social media video that brought to the fore the struggles schoolchildren go through to cross the stream in their quest to access education.
Dr Benjamin Anyagre Aziginaateeg, the Chief Executive Officer of ACUC, reacting to the development, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the instruction from the President to employ the emergency services of the engineers of the GAF in constructional works was the right way to go.
Dr Aziginaateeg said activating the additional responsibilities of the forces for national reconstruction would rapidly reduce the infrastructural deficit in most rural settings in Ghana.
He indicated that the swift response of the engineers to Asuokow for a feasibility study towards the construction of the bridge, was a testament to what the armed forces could do in infrastructural development.
“The Ghana Armed Forces readiness to address emergency infrastructural requirements should be fortified, sustained, and the same vigour, used in other rural settlements in Ghana,” he said.
He stressed that to promote the deployment of organised institutional capacity to help resolve road and infrastructural challenges, the GAF should be equipped and encouraged.
The CEO indicated that works that could urgently and gradually be done by field engineers of the GAF should be properly awarded to them as a state institution.
Dr Aziginaateeg further suggested that aside from the tooling of the engineers of the Ghana Armed Forces, a community-based organisation to be named “Community Infrastructural Development Cooperative (CIDC), ” should be set up, made up of quantity surveyors, architects, parks and gardens, plumbers, and electricians, among others resident in a given community.
Such community infrastructure development cooperatives could be marshalled to work hand in hand with technical vocational institutions to undertake minor infrastructural projects in their communities, he said.
“The proposed CIDC is to substitute individual companies in rural infrastructural development. In many cases, these individual companies default with supervising agencies,” he added.
He said a robust partnership between the CIDC and the district assemblies, supervised by the traditional rulers, would promote rapid rural infrastructural development in Ghana, noting that awarding all kinds of contracts to people not equipped with technical know-how often ended up draining the financial coffers of the state for shoddy works.
GNA