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23.12.2017 Feature Article

Peter Suaka Writes: The Ballot Box Is Failing Us!

Peter Suaka Writes: The Ballot Box Is Failing Us!
23.12.2017 LISTEN

On Wednesday 7th December 2016, Ghana News Agency reported that as at 3:30am, voters were fighting in long queues in a quest to vent their anger via the ballot box against what they perceived to be corruption and daylight robbery of the tax payer money. Ghana had an option in which they saw incorruptibility and desire to protect the public purse. He demonstrated that in his eloquence and humility. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo was the man to bit. The power of the ballot box.

 “A school which costs GH¢160,000 to construct by the private sector costs in excess of GH¢500,000 when done by government. Why won’t Ghanaians suffer?” this is quoting verbatim – Nana Addo on 11th July 2016 just a month before the 2016 elections. About a year down the line after he has been voted into power as president, this same school is costing us not even the allegedly inflated GHc500,000 but ghc770,000 and the justification is that there are some ancillaries attached to it. Mr president, where is the “Engel” in you?

You are the president of a country in which over ten students died within the period of less than six months in a bizarre situation where medical specialists site poor conditions and congestion in dormitories as part of the causes of these deaths yet you choose to invest in questionable ministries with ghc800, 000 for constructing a website, are you serious? Are you aware funding of your flagship campaign promise - the free SHS is in arrears of 80% of its budget for the first term of the first year of implementation? You accuse your predecessor of wasting the tax payer money constructing world class secondary school blocks at areas you called “wrong” locations in Ghana. If this is wastage to you, how will you describe spending 800,000 on a ministry’s website??

 

What technical expertise does the Ministry of Special Development Initiative have in constructing dams that the Agric ministry do  not have? What technical expertise does the Ministry of Special Development Initiative have to supervise the acquisition of ambulances amounting to over  Ghc97 million? What is the use of the Health Ministry then? What is the Ministry of housing doing that a certain Minister for Special Development Initiative should be constructing toilets and boreholes?? Has the NPP ever come across words such as duplicity and wastage in their governance process? Does winning elections suddenly become the license for abuse of power??

10 million has been approved for the purchase of 20 4×4 vehicles for the ministry which is virtually a duplicate of other ministries whiles the education minister advises students to defecate in polythens for lack of toilet facilities. Another 6.5million CEDI's has been approved for the purchase of furniture for this same ministry. What is the staff strength of this ministry that Ghana should procure 20 four-wheel drives at the cost of Ghc10 million for a ministry that should not even exist in the first place??

Is this government aware that neonatal mortality is in the ascendancy as at now?? Should we be spending GHc 10million on four-wheel drives at the time that teachers handle a class size of 80students?? Where is the one million dollar per each constituency?? Are we now been told to wait till next year??? Is this a prove that the NPP have no plan for managing this countries???

Has Nana Addo soon forgotten that children lie prostrate to write in schools?? Is the president aware that over 20% of Ghanaian children of less than five years are malnourished and close to 80% anemic?? Is this cruelty or shear incompetence? For how long shall we endure this wickedness?? I almost thought there should be an option to the ballot box!!

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