GHANA POLITICS: NPP SETS ‘NDC’S RECORDS’ STRAIGHT AT GARU-TEMPANE

GHANA POLITICS: NPP SETS ‘NDC’S RECORDS’ STRAIGHT AT GARU-TEMPANE

Edward Adeti’s Report, Upper East, Ghana

NDC

The Garu-Tempane constituency executives of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) have descended heavily on the District Chief Executive (DCE) and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Garu-Tempane, Mr. David Adakudugu and Mr. Dominic Azimbe Azumah respectively, for claiming credit for some of the infrastructural development they say the Kufuor-led Administration brought to the district.

According to a statement jointly signed by the Constituency Chairman, Mr. Joseph Akudbilla, and the Constituency Election Officer, Mr. Emmanuel Asore Avoka, the DCE and the MP had told the world in an interview on URA Radio of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) in Bolgatanga that the infrastructural development at the Tempane Senior High School was their initiative.

Refuting the alleged claim in a press conference at Garu, Mr. Avoka said: “In fact, the 24-unit classroom block, the administration complex, the girls’ dormitory, the headmaster’s quarters, the dining hall, the KVIPs, the new school bus and a lot more are all the success story of the Kufuor Administration spearheaded by Honourable Alhassan Samari, the immediate past Regional Minister and parliamentary candidate for election 2012 for the area.”

The statement recounted that the NPP, before losing power in 2008, had mourned with the district for having only one second-cycle institution and had, therefore, improved its infrastructural outlook with future plans to also upgrade it to a boarding status. It said the process by which the status could have been acquired by now had hit a snag due to what it described as lack of commitment on the part of the MP.

Whilst slapping the DCE and the MP in the face with an allegation that the two men had not only turned their backs on the boarding-status agenda but had also distanced themselves from the electorate and had resorted to amassing wealth, the statement also asked the Mills-led Government to translate the “action year” into alleviation of the suffering confronting students, parents and teachers of the Tempane Senior High School by granting the school the much-awaited boarding status.    

The other developmental projects which the statement says the DCE and the MP had publicly stolen credit for in the area include the Small Town Water Systems, the Garu Township Road, the National Youth Employment Programme, security and the installation Garu Township streetlights. It said documents that were traceable to the DCE’s office ought to have informed him before going on air that the Garu Small Town Water System and the Tempane Small Town Water System were awarded in July 2007 and August 2008 respectively, when the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was not in power.

The statement laughed at the DCE for also describing the Garu Market Project as another success of the NDC. It told the press that Mr. Adakudugu himself was seen lobbying for a store at the same market for a relative in 2008, the year the market project was awarded on contract with funds from DISCAP. It noted that the same project had been abandoned for lack of funds to pay contractors. “We would state clearly that this intentional delay by government to release funds for its completion is not meant only to punish the contractor but as well the market women whose huts and stores were destroyed for the purpose,” it barked.

The DCE and the MP also earned an unsightly picture from the executives who painted them as “self-styled, dishonest politicians” for claiming that the Garu Township Road Project, which the statement identified as a JICA-funded development that was awarded in July 2008 under the NPP but halted in 2009 under the NDC, was an NDC initiative.

Whilst asking the NDC Government to decouple business from politics by putting a stop to branding a particular group as pro-NPP contractors, the executives further screamed on government to expedite action on the payment of monies due contractors in the district “to enable them complete the numerous projects initiated by the erstwhile NPP Government.” It noted that prompt payment would not only bring relief to the potential beneficiaries of the projects but would also “restore the already waned confidence of the Ghanaian contractor in the ailing NDC Government.”

Reacting to another alleged claim by the DCE that more youths had been employed under the NYEP, the executives said the DCE had filled the NYEP payroll with “a very high” number of ghost names that belonged to friends of the MP and the DCE and some executive members of the NDC. They said it was time for the Mills-led Management to heed the frequent call by Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, former First Lady, for probity and accountability by conducting an immediate headcount and instituting a proper monitoring system on the NYEP. The statement hit the MP hard for allegedly throwing a cloud of dust in the eyes of the people when he had once upon a time stood on a Danjuar festival ground, unfolded a document and showed it to the people as a material confirming that the Tempane Senior High School had finally won the boarding status. “Today as we talk, the document has vanished into the air and parents, students and teachers are still struggling to find answers to why the honourable man lied so heavily,” it said.

It also proved as false that the MP had purchased motorbikes from his common fund for the District Police Command to combat crime at Garu-Tempane, as the MP purportedly had announced during an interview with Unique FM in Accra last year. The same MP is also said to have kicked against a decision to fix the Garu Township streetlights after they had been tampered with by thieves in 2009, saying it was the NPP that executed the project. The statement also accused the DCE of greed for allegedly setting up a personal multi-million mansion within a year in office, auctioning two pickups belonging to the assembly to himself and awarding all the juicy contracts to himself through his bosom friend.

According to the statement, between 2005 and 2006, 54 classroom blocks, 20 KVIPs, 6 clinics, 8 market structures, 15 teachers’ quarters and 20 boreholes were provided under the NPP. Within the same period, electricity was extended to 6 communities, feeder roads and bridges were constructed and others rehabilitated, streetlights were erected in the Garu Township, free exercise books and text books as well as furniture were distributed. The district, the statement said, also sponsored both nursing students and student teachers in the colleges.

“With this track record, the DCE should never for once try again to compare the performance of his ailing regime to a regime that is now known as the beacon of aggressive infrastructural development,” it concluded.

When contacted on phone, the DCE debunked the allegations and particularly challenged the executives to mention the registration numbers of the vehicles that he was alleged to have auctioned to himself from the assembly. He described the criticisms of the executives as an unbridled act of desperation for power and vowed to react “overwhelmingly” with his own press statement alongside the MP who was in the United States of America at the time of the telephone interview.