THE Eastern Regional branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described the recent tour of the region by President John Dramani Mahama as a desperate pre-campaign launch project, abuse of office and misuse of state resources.
According to the NPP, the president’s ‘accounting to the people’ tour did not give proper account of his stewardship to the people of the region; it rather deceived them about the actual achievements of his party’s eight years in office.
Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta, Second Vice Regional Chairman of the NPP, presenting the party’s “True State of Eastern Region” at a press conference, said the president dealt with only what he deemed fit for his personal political campaign, instead of his supposed ‘accounting to the people.’”
“What the truths are about the achievements of his government and political party, what they have claimed with regard to growth and development of the Eastern Region under their eight-year watch and the truth that shows the Mahama government has woefully failed the Ghanaian people were not indicated,” Nana Fredua asserted.
Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta charged, “We therefore call on him to account for the cost of this tour of the region and refund the money to the state coffers. The abuse of office and corruption must stop.”
The NPP hinted that Mr. Mahama spent three days in the region, but during all those days he did not spend the night there. “At the end of each day he was flown by helicopter above our deplorable roads back to Accra. He was also flown from place to place in some instances. If he was not accounting to the people about our roads which have become synonymous with the words “deadly,” “dangerous,” “economically debilitating” etc, and claiming questionable successes in that sector, we would then have reason to consider the flights acceptable,” he noted.
Education
The NPP indicated that President Mahama was only around to commission projects that his government didn’t initiate. “For instance, the engineering block at the Koforidua Polytechnic, which was inaugurated by the president, was initiated under former President Kufuor’s administration and is currently 50 per cent complete, yet the head of state went ahead to commission it,” Nana Fredua stated.
Health
According to Nana Fredua Ofori-Atta, President John Mahama’s best account for the health sector was his interest in infrastructure, but did not refer in any way to the real state of affairs of the health sector.
“Mr. Mahama did not talk about the poor state of affairs of the National Health Insurance Scheme. He did not talk about the state of various health facilities across the region. He was not interested in letting the public understand the effect of the three-and-a-half years of protracted electricity problem and its effect on the lives of the people. He did not account for the problems that doctors in the country face and the effect of their strikes and demonstrations. He did not talk about how the lack of employment which graduate nurses have been complaining about has affected the health sector…… ,” the party underscored.
Water
The Eastern Region NPP challenged President Mahama who claimed that he had done a lot about the water situation in the region, saying that most water bodies such as Rivers Birim and Densu had been polluted by galamsey (illegal mining) activities and that many people do not have potable drinking water.
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