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Highlights of Akufo-Addo’s 2019 SONA – Part 6

Feature Article Nana Akufo-Addo
MAR 3, 2019 LISTEN
Nana Akufo-Addo

Perhaps the most significant policy initiative promulgated in the 2019 Akufo-Addo SONA presentation to Parliament on Thursday, February 21, was the direly needed solution to the deadly annual flooding of a vast portion of the Volta Basin in the erstwhile so-called Three-Northern-Regions by the Burkina Faso-located Bagre Dam, whenever the sluice gates of the French-constructed dam are opened up by the Burkinabe authorities to ease the problem of flooding in Burkina Faso itself. Under the new Akufo-Addo initiative, another dam will be constructed in Pwalugu, in the Northern Region, to ensure that spillage from the Bagre Dam is conserved for productive use in agriculture. The Bagre Dam Menace has been in existence for more than two decades now, with the leaders of the National Democratic Congress that has temporally dominated Ghana’s Fourth Republic having done a diddly little to absolutely nothing by way of finding a definitive solution to the same.

In the disciplinary area of the Creative Arts, Nana Akufo-Addo announced that the construction of the Eastern Regional Theater, in Koforidua, had been completed, with the construction of the Kumasi Theater set to begin in the offing. On the latter count, the imperative need for the construction of theaters in all of the present 16 regional capitals can hardly be gainsaid, if the creative arts and the massive pools of talents among the 30-million-plus Ghanaian citizens and residents are to be fully and adequately nurtured and systematically promoted. Indeed, in due course, the New Patriotic Party government may do itself and Ghanaians great good to ensure the establishment of creative arts centers in the various district capitals across the country. But what I would like to highlight, more than anything else, is the imperative need for the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture and the Creative Arts to team up in establishing creative arts contests and festivals, or sponsorship of the same, at the district, regional and national levels in order to bring out the best creative talents among our youths. I think in this sphere of our lives, there is a lot that we could learn from the Nigerians and the South Africans, among a host of other friends and neighbors, both within the African continent and abroad.

The preceding, of course, goes hand-in-glove with the massive promotion of tourism, such as the ongoing “See Ghana, Eat Ghana, Wear Ghana and Feel Ghana” campaign. As well, the decision by the Akufo-Addo Administration to sponsor the celebration of 2019 as “The Year of Return” for Africans in the Diaspora could not be more appropriate, as it marks 400 years of not only the patently undignified massive trade in African humanity by Western Europeans but, even more importantly, the vanguard, if also regrettable, role of Ghanaian leaders in this catastrophic tragedy of apocalyptic proportions. The creative arts and our education system, at all levels, must be focused on this often-neglected aspect of the “African Predicament” by the commissioning of literary and fine arts competitions, music and drama. Indeed, the decision by the government to upgrade tourism sites, which appears to be already underway, must also be lauded.

Among such landmarks, we are informed, are the Elmina Heritage Bay, Axim’s Fort St. Antonio, Assin-Manso Slave River, Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa Farm, Bunso Arboretum, Kintampo Water Falls, among a significant number of others. I could not stop but wonder about the world-famous Aburi Botanical Garden and Fort Amsterdam, near Saltpond, which I sadly drove past in July of last year and, which, regrettably, had been abandoned to the ravages of the elements, as it were. cleanliness, it has often been said, is next to godliness; and so I was enthused in no mean measure by the decision by President Akufo-Addo and his cabinet to vigorously clamp down on the primitive health hazard that is open defecation by the use of Sanitation Brigades and other monitors and law-enforcement agents in the systematic and meticulous policing and enforcement of good environmental health in our villages, towns and cities.

To this end, this was what Nana Akufo-Addo had to say: “In 2019, apart from continuing with educating and sensitizing the people, we intend to use the bylaws [on the books] to enforce cleanliness. The Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Sanitation are working together to try sanitation offences. Persons who [recklessly] litter will be tried and punished, and so would those who steal litter bins from our streets.” The President also significantly highlighted the fact that the two previous National Democratic Congress’ governments had done little to curb the deadly hazard of open defecation. For instance, by the close of the 8-year span of the Mills-Mahama and the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur regime, only a diddly 1,698 toilet facilities had been added to the existing public stock, whereas within the relatively short temporal space of barely 24 months, the Akufo-Addo Administration of the New Patriotic Party had added some 35,000 toilet facilities to the existing stock, amounting to 53-percent, as contrasted with the approximately 17-percent public toilet facilities constructed by the previous Mills-Mahama regime.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
March 1, 2019
E-mail: [email protected]

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