It emerged that the aggrieved local contractors who undertook various projects under the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's flagship programme of the US$1Million per Constituency have hinted their plan to lock up classrooms of the various primary and junior high schools on Monday, January 18, 2021, over government indebtedness to them.

The action which was scheduled to take place from Monday, January 18, 2021, three days after the reopening of the schools would have the propensity to affect the learning of the various primary and Junior High schools in the 275 administrative districts in the country.

"We are informing the government of President that starting from Monday, January 18, 2021, they will see us closing down the schools we have built but have not been paid for work done, yet, such schools are being used.

"This is the starting point to prove to government that they owe contractors and the contractors need their money,"  the constructors stated.

Speaking in an interview with Otec FM on Monday, January 11, 2020, monitored by Soireenews,  the National Chairman of the Association of Local Contractors, Mr James Gyan on behalf of the affected contractors called on the government to settle debts owed them for projects executed and certified with immediate effect else they will lock up the school facilities.

The Association with about 500 members said government owe them an estimated amount of GH¢500 million adding that lack of payments to its members is impacting negatively on their families.

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 "Contractors have struggled to meet their financial obligations to the banks, families and material creditors, among others," they added.

He stated that the government’s inability to pay them their due has led to the loss of jobs and properties used as collateral by its members for bank loans and threatened not to vote in upcoming general elections.

He served notice that if the government did not settle the debts it owned contractors by Monday, January 18, 2020, “we will lock up the school facilities built with the sweat of our toil, for which some of our members’ lives have been cut short. In addition, we will hit all the regional capitals with earth-shaking demonstrations to let the world know our precarious lot.”

“What we are saying now is that we are giving government two weeks – which is June 26. The government should not allow it to get to that point.

Mr Gyan said,  in a bid to show their displeasure of the way they are being treated, they have indicated that they will be forced to take a bold step to lock up schools to show if that is what is going to get governments attention to pay them.

He revealed that some of the projects they undertook were the construction of 10 and 16 seater toilet facilities, Market Stores, Durbar grounds, Police Post, 3 and 6unit Classroom blocks, construction of green grass pitches, boreholes etc all under the US $1 Million Per Constituency Projects without any payment made by government to that effect in which some of the facilities are been used by various institutions making it difficult to defend themselves that they have not been paid by government hence this warning.

 “Workers have been laid off because we can’t pay them. The situation has also brought untold hardship on us, resulting in some losing their lives,” he added. Mr Gyan said the arrears have not been settled over a year since the submission of certificates for work done.

Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu, Greater Accra Regional Correspondent