4 More For Nana To Do More For Ghana

The deliberate refusal of governments in power to continue unfinished projects of previous governments does not help the speedy and meaningful development of Ghana. That attitude has slowed down Ghana's development and advancement.

When it comes to unfinished projects and infrastructure, many Ghanaians assume that failure to complete the development projects is driven by corruption because the contractors give kickbacks to politicians and bureaucrats.

Due to this, the money left in their hands is not enough to complete the work. Such corrupt practices by politicians, when it comes to infrastructure procurement and delivery, have been one of the major causes for the non-completion of projects in Ghana.

During his time in office, Mahama blatantly and deliberately refused to tackle the unfinished projects of John Kufuor. Many low cost housing that were initiated in many places which were uncompleted remained unfinished during Mahama's time.

A clear example is the 300 units of unfinished low cost houses which were completely neglected by the NDC government. The units were occupied by armed robbers, vagabonds and homeless people. The unfinished major highway near Prempeh College, which was going to be two a lane road from Kwadaso and beyond, was completely abandoned by Mahama and his NDC. Hear what he is saying in 2020: "I pledge to complete all unfinished projects within a year of returning into office if voted into power in December 2020." He often refers to Ghanaians as people with short memories and that is why after abandoning Kufuor's unfinished projects, he pretends to bemoan the practice where governments abandoned projects that were commissioned by their predecessors. How dare you, Maama! Have you ever stopped to think of why you lost the 2016 elections?

His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo was sworn in as president on the 7th January 2017 after winning overwhelmingly in the December 2016 presidential elections

The main agenda of Nana Addo and NPP was to work feverishly to boost social infrastructure and to provide a convenient economic environment for private business to thrive. As a very sensible and thoughtful president, he tackled the unfinished projects of his predecessor, John Dramani Mahama. In Kumasi, for example, he completed the Kejetia Market which was started by Mahama. He also tackled the Sofo Line motorway which was first began by Kufuor but neglected by Mahama. He worked on the Fomena and Kumawu hospitals. Soon the opposition NDC members criticized him for taking credit for Mahama's unfinished projects and pretend not to have seen the numerous projects initiated by Nana Addo. The opposition party, the NDC have raised criticism and placed all the policies and projects of the NPP in a state of controversy. Despite these criticisms, the government unabatedly continued with the projects.

From 2017 to 2019, the NPP government was able to complete 339 health projects. Still criticism kept coming in. According to the opposition what the NPP government did was a mere improvement of the condition of old health centres and, according to their estimation, only 88 health centres were actually built from the scratch.

NPP disagrees. Assuming they built 88 health centres, is that not an achievement? The information shows that the government's effort and hard work gave rise to 654 health facilities throughout the country in numerous districts. These include building and construction of new health facilities and chip substances, growth and rehabilitation of existing facilities and a modern day health device.

There are other success stories of the NPP government which includes, a successful implementation of free SHS, National Digital Property Addressing System, Nation Builders Corps (NABCO), Interoperability of banking and mobile payment system, fighting against galamsey, establishment of office of the special prosecutor, National ID take-off, 100m dollars National Entrepreneurship and Innovative Programme (NEIP) fund established, implementation of paperless port system. More than 230 factories are ongoing, 76 completed, implementation of planting for food and jobs, growth rate from 3.6(lowest in 23 years) to 8.0 within few years of Nana Addo coming to power, Restoration of teachers and nurses allowance, reduction of inflation from inherited 15.4% to 9.6%, reduction of policy rate of Bank of Ghana from inherited 26.5% 17%. The list is endless.

Nana Addo must be returned to power to continue the good work he has accomplished. It is clear that when the NDC came after Kufuor, they abandoned many good policies and projects of Kufuor. The low cost housing Kufuor began in many regions were abandoned by the NDC.

I suggest parliament must enact a law which will make it compulsory to deal with unfinished projects of their predecessors, so that assuming Mahama becomes president, he will not turn his back to any unfinished project of Nana Addo. 4 more for Nana!

Columnist: Stephen Atta Owusu

Author: Dark Faces at Crossroads

Email: [email protected]