Bureaucracy may be holding up the completion of some roads

Dear Editor,

If one were to find out the reasons for the delay in completing roads in some communities, then sometimes the contractors should not be blamed.

In some cases when the buck is passed from one agent to another, the culprit is the government. We, the laymen are told the delay in acquiring the needed material such as stones, is not because there are no stones but because the supplier is owed money by the contractors who are owed money by the relevant government ministry. So who is to be blamed?

Years ago I had the unfortunate experience of contracting a set of weeders to weed a compound for a quarter of a million dollars. All the relevant documents were submitted to the Region’s Accounting Unit. Well, the amount of processing that that document went through is mind boggling. This process was going on while months passed. I was bombarded almost every day by the weeders so that I became fearful about their approach.

There were times when no one knew on whose desk the contract was. After much embarrassment fear and frustration, I directed these weeders to the RAU. There someone dealt with the matter and they were sent to the Ministry of Finance where a cheque was prepared for their payment. This was after almost six months of waiting.

If the road contractors are waiting for that type of payment in order to pay the suppliers, then I am sure that our incomplete roads might finish some time around next August, depending on the weather.
Editor, bureaucracy is heaping frustration on the people in the communities who want their roads finished, and on the contractors who, I am sure, want to complete their works in a timely manner.

Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)