The Upper East Region’s residents are being urged to firmly demand from the in power administration their fair share of the national cake. If the region fails to take those steps, Nana Akuffo-NPP Addo’s government would continue to flatter the people of the area while advancing no real development initiatives.
These worries were expressed by the NDC in a statement that was signed by Jonathan Abdallah Salifu, the Upper East Regional Communication Officer. Mr. Abdallah Salifu reminded the residents of the Upper East Region that the NPP still has not taken care of the region as of the 2023 Budget Statement and Financial Policy, despite having made commitments to do so in the run-up to the 2020 general election.
“Despite their clear failure to uphold their own initial social pact with the people of the region, they again, in the run up to the 2020 elections, promised to build the Pwalugu multipurpose dam to halt the perennial floodings in the north and to provide 60MW of hydro power to the national grid, build 120 affordable housing units in Puso-namongo in the Talensi District, complete the BBP road by end of December, 2020 (Communication Bureau, Presidency: 08th October, 2020) after needlessly stalling work on same for nearly two years in the name of audit and also to start works on the Upper East Region’s airport at Sherigu in the Bolgatanga municipality (Starrfmonline, 20th July, 2018), continue works on the Chuchulinga-Chiana road, construct the Bolga-Sherigu- Naaga road, build 60 beds capacity district hospitals at Bolga-East, Nabdam, Binduri, Pusiga, Garu, Tempane, Builsa South and Kassena -Nankana west districts in what they christened as Agenda 111. These hospitals were to be completed in 18 months. As at today, none of the Agenda 111 projects have been completed as promised and are conspicuously missing in the 2023 budget.”
“In order to hoodwink the people into believing that they are committed to these rhetorics and slogans, they had the President and the entire government’s machinery with 50 V8 vehicles to cut sods and in some cases, visit various sites amidst pomp and pageantry. As a further demonstration, they made various budgetary allocations to these projects in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 Budget Statements. These saw some little presence of some of the contractors on sites even though this was not to be a long while as most of them demobilised after some short stay.”
“The NDC in the region, having visited the various project sites and monitored developments in the roads, education, health, agriculture, electricity, and others sectors in the region and in keeping with our role as the only viable and credible opposition party, feels obliged to call out the failed and hopelessly SUPER INCOMPETENT, DISHONEST and INEPT Nana Addo-Bawumia’s government for their lack of commitment in staying true to the development needs of the Upper East region as we have painstakingly noted with concern that apart from the paltry GHS 253,282,840.00 allocation to the PMPD, all the aforementioned projects from which they drew a lot of underserved political capital have advertently not received any budgetary allocations in the uninspiring 2023 budget statement presented to Parliament in November, 2022.”
According to the NDC, there are a litany of questions, the ruling government would have to answer to explained the delayed development.
“The NDC and the good people of Upper East Region seek answers to the following questions from the government: What is causing the sudden disappearance of those projects in the current budget? Is it not a classical demonstration of lack of commitment to the development of the Upper East Region? What are the possible reasons that warrant the Nana Addo- Alhaji Bawumia led NPP government to push those projects aside?”
“Perhaps, this singular act is a clear confirmation of a rhetoric lip service government and lack of respect for the good people of the region. We find this conduct of the government very worrying as it has the potential of halting works on these projects hence, slowing down on the pace of development in the region. In fact, the NPP’s government has deliberately placed the Upper East Region in a terrible reverse gear that will take a visionary driver to place the vehicle of development in the region in a forward smooth journey. Who is this driver than the Commissioner General, John Dramani Mahama and the NDC? Under the circumstance, we in the NDC in the region deem this obvious lack of interest in the development of the Upper East Region by this current NPP’s government as unacceptable and thus, demand of this disastrous and confused NPP government to take immediate steps to cut down on the waste, corruption, the reckless borrowing, profligacy and size of the government so as to spare resources for the productive sectors of the economy and the continuation and completion of these projects in the region. We also call on the people of the Upper East Region to hold the NPP responsible to their promises and take steps to vote them out in 2024 for the developmental and results-oriented NDC to take over the reigns of government to halt the systematic destruction of our country and to redirect it to the path of progress and posterity for all.”
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
