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Press Release
NPP
December 23, 2015
Bawumia Challenges
Government to Put Costs to All Projects in Green Book for
Accountability
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia,
Vice-Presidential Candidate to Nana Akufo-Addo, has
challenged the NDC government to ascribe costs to all the
projects it has catalogued in its latest Green Book to
enable Ghanaians verify if the enormous resources accrued by
the current government have been substantially invested in
these projects as the government would want us to believe.
Dr. Bawumia threw this
challenge while speaking at the 15th Extraordinary Annual
Delegates Conference of the NPP in Sunyani on Saturday.
Touching on the record of
the NPP government, under the leadership of former President
John Kufuor between 2001 and 2008, Dr. Bawumia noted that
with comparably little inflows of GHC20billion, the NPP was
able to undertake several projects and social intervention
policies.
On the contrary, the NDC
administration had in the last seven years accrued 10 times
(GHC200 billion) what the NPP had in eight years and yet had
little to show for it.
“The NDC government over
the last seven years has had at its disposal GHC200 billion
from taxes, loans and oil. But what have its achievements
been? The NDC has recently produced another “Green Book” to
catalogue its so-called achievements in terms of projects
undertaken, the very thing our President described in the
past as an “exercise in mediocrity”.
“What is interesting is
that after seven years in power and after having over 200
billion Ghana cedis at its disposal, many of NDC projects in
this catalogue are either still on the drawing board or
artistic impressions. What really have they been doing for
the people of Ghana in the past seven years?” he said.
Dr. Bawumia noted that
most of the contracts given under the current government
were either riddled with corruption or were grossly
overpriced as a resort of the government’s resort to
sole-sourcing as the primary method of awarding contracts.
“Many of these projects
are overpriced as a result of the apparent resort to
sole-sourcing as the primary method of procurement by this
government. The country is therefore not getting value for
money for these projects.
“It should be noted that
this NDC government has actually borrowed some $37 billion
in the last seven years (dollar equivalent at the time of
borrowing). Nonetheless the total number of loan financed
projects that the government is touting as having undertaken
is below $5 billion. So where is the rest of the money? The
government should put a price tag on all the projects it
claims to have executed (along with the loans) and the lack
of value for money will be immediately exposed to all”, he
stated.
NPP
December 23, 2015
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