Green Book Projects: Bawumia Challenges Gov't...Over GHC200bn Expenditure

President John Mahama launched a book "Accounting to the People" in Accra, a couple of weeks ago, but one thing he failed to account for, according to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) was to put cost to most of the projects enlisted in the Green Book.

The Green Book gives an over view of the progress of work of government upon President Mahama’s assumption of office.

The book covers areas such as education, energy and health among others.

President Mahama said the book will make information available to the people as it forms part of efforts to deepen transparency and accountability in governance but he has been challenged to produce figures.

But Vice-Presidential Candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, wants 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."


Below is a copy of Dr. Bawumia’s challenge to the current administration

 
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 result 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

Source: Chris Joe Quaicoe/ email:[email protected]