DR. BAWUMIA SAYS GOV’T HAS BETTER DEV’T RECORD UNDER FOUR YEARS 10th NOV., 2020

 The Vice President of the Republic, H.E Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has started a three-day campaign tour of the Upper East Region with a passionate call on the chiefs and people as well as electorates, to vote massively for the governing New Patriotic Party [NPP] stressing that, the party had a better development record than immediate past-regime. He disclosed that the government had so far undertaken a total of 1,488 projects across the sectors in Upper East region with as many as, 688 of them completed.

Dr. Bawumia at the Mirigu durbar

 

Speaking during a courtesy call on the Paramount Chief of Sirigu in the Kassena-Nankana West District where the day’s tour began, Dr. Bawumia noted that the North of Ghana had lagged behind in development for long, the reason the Nana Addo-led government had implemented several targeted policies in the almost-four years of its administration, geared at creating jobs and lifting the citizenry out of poverty. He cited a number of policies and interventions including the Planting for Food and Jobs, the 1-Village; 1-Dam, 1-Constituency; 1-Ambulance, the Nation Builders’ Corp [NABCO], the Zongo Development Fund and 1-District; 1-Factory as evidence of how successfully government was pushing the development agenda.

Dr. Bawumia also reminded the Chief and his people of government’s restoration of the teacher and nursing-training allowances which were cancelled under the previous government as well as the successful implementation of the flagship Free Senior High School [SHS] which had as many as 1.2 Million students benefiting so far. In addition, he mentioned the commencement of work on the multi-million Dollar Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam Project saying, “these are all concrete policies that are impacting positively on the welfare of our people”.

Furthermore, the Vice President talked of a number of roads in the region that were also being constructed and mentioned particularly the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmako road with nearly 50 kilometres of it completed while about 46 kilometres was outstanding, the Bolgatanga-Sherigu-Naaga road with works ongoing and the Navrongo-Naaga road also receiving works at the moment. He also gave assurance to the chief and his people that, the drainage issues within the Sirigu market and the area’s road network will be given the required attention as he tasked the Upper East Regional minister to liaise with the roads authorities to act on it.

Meanwhile the Sirigu Chief, Naba Roland Akwara Atogumdeya in his welcome remarks earlier thanked government for not excluding his traditional area in the country’s development drive and commended Dr. Bawumia in particular for gracing the final funeral rites of the late Paramount chief of the area way back in 2014. He then made a passionate appeal to government to take trigger the necessary processes to create a new district and constituency for the from the current Kassena-Nankana West District and the Paga-Chiana Constituency respectively as these calls and petitions are now several decades old.

The Vice President and his entourage departed Sirigu and made a stop in Mirigu where he addressed a durbar of the chiefs and people where he again for the people to vote in retaining the Nana Addo-led government and thus, recounted the successes chalked by NPP-governments through the years. He stated the country’s governments born out of the NPP were known with countless pro-poor policies that always inured to the benefits of the larger Ghanaian populace than its counterpart, the National Democratic Congress [NDC].

Chiefs of Mirigu at durbar

He recalled for instance that when Ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor of the NPP took office in 2000, policies such as the National Youth Employment Programme, the National Health Insurance Scheme [NHIS], the Free Maternal Care, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty [LEAP] and the Ghana School Feeding Programme among others. He observed however that, the NPP’s main political opponents, the NDC on the other hand, do not have the requisite management skills for Ghana’s economy and were rather known with the termination and wrongful handling of state affairs such as the botched Savannah Accelerated Development Authority [SADA], the cancellation of allowances for nursing/teacher trainees and mismanagement of the NHIS among others.   

In his remarks, Paramount Chief of Mirigu, Naba Anthony A. Anonsona appealed to government to get the contractor working on the Mirigu-Nayagenia-Navrongo back to site to complete the road which started early 2020. He also called for the extension of electricity and water connection to his traditional area and requested that a befitting police station and accommodation be constructed for officers posted to the community.

Dr. Bawumia also addressed separate durbars of the chiefs and people of Kanjarga in the Builsa North District and Naaga in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality.