The Fixing the Country Movement has stated the government of President Akufo-Addo has initiated 17,000 infrastructure projects in the Volta Region out of which 8,746 have been completed.
8,588 of these, it said, are ongoing and at various stages of completion and are in various sectors of the economy including agriculture, education, energy, health, housing, industrial, market, railway, road safety, and security.
According to the Movement, it is therefore misleading and very disingenuous for anyone to claim the Akufo-Addo-led government has abandoned the Volta Region in terms of development.
Convener of the Movement, Ernest Kofi Owusu Bempah who addressed a press conference on the controversial E-Block in Aflao and the ultimatum by the Paramount Chief, stated that President Akufo-Addo has shown commitment towards the completion of E-block schools that former President Mahama started.
He averred that the erstwhile Mahama Government in 2012 announced its intention to build 200 Community Day Senior High Schools in the country to enhance access to Secondary Education and yet contracts were awarded for just 124 out of the speculated 200.
He said, “To all intent and purposes, former President Mahama completed only 29 out of the 200 E-Blocks before Ghanaians voted for a change in 2016. Before the inception of the Akufo-Addo government, only 29 E-block schools had been completed and operational with the rest either at ground level or not constructed.”
“Statistics from the Ghana Education service indicates that as at the time the John Mahama-led government left office on January 7, 2017, only 29 out of 200 of its E block day schools project were completed,” he stated.
The NDC government, he said, failed to pay contractors after it had awarded GH¢900 contracts for the E-Blocks and took the Akufo-Addo administration to pay off the debt to ensure none of the schools is abandoned but completed for all school children to benefit from the government’s free SHS programme.
“President Akufo-Addo has completed 31 of the E-blocks under the Secondary Education Improvement Programme and as part of increased efforts to provide infrastructure in the implementation of the Free Senior High School Programme.”
“Indeed, as from 2017 to Date, 31 new schools have been constructed bringing the total number of completed projects to 60 as of September 2020. It is important to note that all the 60 completed schools have been operationalized and are currently in use,” he added.
Mr. Owusu Bempah said that President Akufo-Addo has been committed to completing these projects against claims that he has abandoned them.
“if the one who initiated the E-Block projects was able to complete a total of 29 schools within the four years that he was in government whilst the one who inherited it has completed 31 of the E-Blocks within the same four years and handed over for use, which of the two is committed to making sure all these projects are completed?”
“Don’t forget Akufo-Addo had to pay off GH¢ 900 million contract debt to the construction companies,” he added.
The Volta Region, he said, remains the World Bank of the NDC and the yet eight years the NDC was in power accounted for nothing with regards to development and stressed, the NPP has, at least, been honest enough not to give the people of Volta region any promise they know they can’t fulfil.
According to him, it is comical how Mr. Mahama, out of desperation for power, is driving himself to the edge with attention-seeking tantrums and acting like an arsonist who always expects to take credit for having extinguished the fire that he kindles.
Source: Mypublisher24.com
