Is it Fair on Ghanaians the Cyclical Attitude by our Governments to Abandon National Projects Started by their Predecessors?

I had on a number of occasions published my views on the deplorably chronic attitudes by our Ghanaian governments to abandoning national projects left half-way completed when they take over the administration of the country from their predecessors just voted out of power. I cannot get my head around this madness of wastages of scarce national resources by our governments.

Much as I shall always blame the governments for directly or indirectly causing financial loss to the nation by their infatuated desire to abandon uncompleted national projects started by their departing rival governments to initiate their own, I shall much the same way blame Ghanaians for not vociferously condemning their crazy mentality but rather support them. How can my beloved country Ghana develop if we should get stalled in a mentality of purposeful wastage of national resources for all myopic reasons?

It is neither the government nor the president that loses anything but the ordinary poor and needy citizens of Ghana. The president and his appointees draw their fat monthly salaries with the concomitant bonuses and per diem allowance as and when the need be. This is on top of them dubiously availing themselves of certain loopholes in the system to embezzle State funds and assets.

Should we as citizens and party activists not cease our stupid mentality of mocking a president or government as having no development agenda of their own if they continued to completion projects left unfinished by their predecessors, what we are seeing as abandonment of projects will forever remain the attitude of Ghanaian governments and presidents to our own detriment. However, should we applaud them or oblige them to finish such half-way completed projects and credit both the outgone and the incoming governments both for their farsightedness, Ghana’s pace of development can see desired acceleration.

Many a time, you will hear a member of a political party, say NPP or NDC, ignorantly accusing the government of having no development plan of their own but just continuing what their departed government started. This is once again a silly thought! It is only educated-illiterates and uncivilized persons who are not politically savvy, but are political boot-lickers because of their stomach that will reason as such.

If our White cotemporaries had behaved in that childish manner as we do as black Ghanaians, their countries would not be such a magnetising centripetal force to pull the citizens of the developing world to their greener pastures to fleece them. How often have we not heard of people trying to flee Africa because of exacerbating poverty, lack of employment and dehumanizing conditions of living to seek better life abroad via Libya only to have most of them die on the high Mediterranean sea when their overloaded inflatable boats capsize? Would they do so if our presidents and governments had ceased their thoughtless fondness for corruption, and had continued to successful completion all semi-completed projects to bring about continuous development even if it comes at snail or tortoise pace?

I was moved to put out this publication when I saw a WhatsApp video on the abandonment of a nearly completed Kasoa Polyclinic and one on an intended Free Senior High School all built by the former John Mahama NDC-led government. Mahama abandoned some projects left half-way completed by former President Kufuor so NPP may think to pay NDC back in their own coin by neglecting theirs left uncompleted. This is where I have a beef with our presidents and governments. Should that policy of tit for tat continue, it is the ordinary Ghanaians that lose out but not the presidents or the governments in power.

If the school in the Central region of which Brogya Gyamfi is talking about has the facilitates to be turned into a boarding school, please, the NPP government must use it. In case it is not feasible for a Day School, please, find money to add a few blocks of flats to it to convert it into a boarding and lodging school. Similarly, do complete the Kasoa Polyclinic for the use of patients.

I know there is no money to complete all projects at the same time, I would like to see the government of His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo continue to complete the projects started by his predecessors which were of collective national interest.

I understand that the Kumawu Government Hospital started by former President Mahama was completely paid for; costing US$20 million. It has now been abandoned. If it was paid for as heard, why its abandonment, Mr President and the NPP government? Is it because it was commenced by the NDC government and that should you complete it the NDC will take credit for it and use it to their advantage during any future general elections? Despite the fact that the hospital was started by the NDC, Kumawu has always voted the NPP. Kumawu is inextricably married to the Danquah-Dombo-Busia tradition. However, Kumawu should not be treated with disdain by the NPP on the assumption that no matter how it is mistreated and neglected, they will continually vote for NPP.

I do not want to divert from the main reason for writing this article by veering from it to discuss Kumawu’s faithfulness in her marriage to NPP. Therefore, I shall stop her to offer suggestions.

SOLUTIONS:

1. All government-executed projects for national interests should not bear any emblem or insignia of the President or government that constructed it. This is because whichever government or president that constructed it used the taxpayers’ money but not their personal pocket money. However, projects built with foreign or national donor’s financing can bear the donor’s logo or something attributing it to the donor e.g. HIPIC financed projects. (HIPIC = Highly Indebted Poor Countries)
2. There should be no plaque on the walls of any public infrastructure bearing the name of the president or political party or government that constructed it if such infrastructure was built with the taxpayers’ money but not donated to the State as been built by a political party, a president etc., from their own pocket money. This will prevent anyone thinking it was built by this particular president or government so we should give them undue credit to the point of influencing our future voting pattern. Should this happen, most subsequent presidents and governments will be willing to continue with the uncompleted projects started by their predecessors to completion.
3. Governments and presidents must be ready to explain why they cannot complete half-way completed projects initiated by their predecessors. Unless the projects are without national interests, they must be fully completed before new ones are started.
4. Ghanaians must be politically savvy. They must praise not only the president who started a particular project but also, the one who completed it. Once we do that, presidents will be happy to complete uncompleted projects of national interest that they come to inherit when they take over power. This view of mine is strongly buttressed by a bible passage that I shall quote verbatim here. “ 1 Corinthians 3:6-9 “6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labour. 9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building”.

The underlying web links are more than enough to highlight to you my stance on the craziness of our governments to abandon projects of national interests started by their predecessors.

1. Ghana's Development Will Keep Retarding If Without Consensus 30 To 50 Year National Development Plan In Place
2. The Hope Of NPP Becoming The Saviour Of Ghana Is Fast Fading
3. The Development of Ghana is a Mirage if Without an Acceptable LongTerm Development Plan in Place

Rockson Adofo