President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
Despite the hollow agitations that, for instance, supposedly got John Dramani Mahama cutting short his campaign to race back to Accra over alleged missing names in the voters’ register, when the Electoral Commissioner has no idea who votes PNC or NDC, development partners, led by the World Bank, have approved a staggering $125 million for Ghana to fund sanitation and water projects.
This is a far cry from 2012 to 2016 when Mahama’s credibility had gotten outrageously low over corruption, the culpability of the Electoral Commission, then under Charlotte Osei, and cries from teachers and nurses as well as unemployed graduates against his government to provide jobs for the nation’s bulging youth populations, as a prerequisite for faster economic growth.
Like corruption and Mahama’s government inability to create jobs, sanitation and sustainable water production for communities was in serious deficit under John Mahama – from the emerging residential areas in urban Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi through deprived communities in the Eastern and Ashanti regions to the Northern regions.
Damning heritage
From markets in the respective business districts to the streets and nooks and crannies of Zongos, the telltale, reprehensible heritage of Mahama was manifest in poor sanitation.
Strikingly, this was the party and government that had been making noise about sanitation and decentralization as a mechanism for sustained provision of basic amenities like potable water and appropriate technology lavatories for households.
Worse still, we remember the National Democratic Congress for demolitions, without engineering programmes that get down to the roots in making ordinary citizens feel they are part of Ghana.
It appeared that it was only where they had interest that they would appear to show concern, like dredging of the Odaw River contract in which we sunk millions of dollars into Mahama’s brother’s company, without seeing an improvement in the Kwame Nkrumah Circle-Odaw River lingering drainage worries.
NPP’s sanitation and water project
How relevant the oncoming sanitation and water project will be is manifest in the teeming hundreds of thousands of residents in low income urban communities in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) and the Kumasi Metropolitan Area (KMA) who are expected to enjoy improved water and sanitation services in the coming months.
Making a revealing statement affirming the World Bank’s confidence in Ghana as a worthy COVID-19 fight partner, the Country Director did not mince words emphasizing that “the [Ghana] initiative is necessary as providing equitable access to safe and improved water supply and sanitation service is essential to improve people’s lives, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic”, in which Ghana, under President Akufo-Addo, has shown exemplary leadership.
Significantly, there is space as well within the spending arrangement for issues like pollution of our ecology which a John Mahama government would rather encourage for populist reasons than vigorously fight in furtherance of sustainable development objectives.
Beyond that, the project is aimed at reducing poverty and making our kids in schools feel comfortable in accessing basic sanitation amenities in fighting COVID-19 while they study to become worthy citizens under enhanced environment in which adherence to safety protocols is without drudgery.
For those Ghanaians looking forward to a brighter and better Ghana, reports such as this should encourage us to ignore the lies and propaganda coming from Mahama and his band of propagandists and stand solidly behind President Akufo-Addo in living out the FOUR MORE FOR NANA TO DO MORE campaign, and retain the NPP in power in the December 7 general elections.
It is, indeed, a patriotic duty we cannot afford to ignore.
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