Former President John Dramani Mahama has added his voice to public pressure on his successor, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to ensure that the reconstruction work on the widely lamented Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakon Road is continued and completed.
The dreadful highway, which links Ghana to her West African neighbours through the Upper East region, was awarded at Gh¢612 million to Brazilian construction firm Queiroz Galvão in the middle of 2016 by the Mahama Administration.
But work slumped into a ‘moonwalk’ pace and later came to a halt after the company pulled out its equipment from site and laid off hundreds of casual workers in 2017 over alleged nonpayment of some arrears by the Akufo-Addo Government.
The former President was addressing supporters of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Saturday at a rally held to climax the party’s ninth Unity Walk in the Upper East regional capital, Bolgatanga.
“A lot of the projects we started have stalled. Many of the hospitals we were building have come to a stop. Many of the schools we were building have come to a stop. Many of the roads we were [constructing] have come to a stop,” Mahama said as the crowd, impatiently pointing to the east, clamoured, “Bawku Road! Bawku Road!”
“But I have one appeal, one appeal,” he said amid a nonstop outcry from the supporters over that road. “If there is one project that we started, that is critical to the economic development of the Upper East region, then it is the Bolga-Bawku Road.”
He added: “If President Akufo-Addo won’t do anything for us in Upper East at all, we beg him, as for that road, he should continue it and finish it for us.”
His touch on the 116-kilometre-long road marked perhaps the best part of his unscripted 18-minute-long address to the NDC members in the region because it was at that point cheers and blasts of vuvuzelas shot to the peak.
Mobile accounts safer as Banks are collapsing under NPP— Isaac Adongo
Welcoming party supporters to the gathering, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo, said Ghana had become a country where Ghanaians now found it safer to deposit money in mobile money accounts as banks were being shut down under the NPP government.
“Today, when you have a Vodafone mobile money account, it will not collapse. When you have an MTN mobile money account, it will not collapse. When you have an Airtel mobile money account, it will not collapse.
“But when you have a bank account, it is the worst and riskiest account you can have, because banks are collapsing. The mobile accounts are safer today than the [bank] accounts of our country. We should bring back John Dramani Mahama to restore the confidence and the hope of the people of Ghana and the world so that together we can leave posterity a better generation than [we are]. At the right time, we would be discussing the work of the NPP and it would be so bad,” Mr. Adongo stated.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/Edward Adeti
