Municipal Chief Executive for Bolgatanga Rex Asanga has attributed the inclusion of a police station constructed by Member of Parliament for the area Isaac Adongo to oversight on the part of staff of the assembly.
Speaking in an interview on Breakfast Today on Monday, Rex Asanga indicated that there was a clear instruction from the presidency that projects financed with the MPs’ share of the Common Fund should be excluded from the database system.
He said although he had flagged the inclusion of that particular facility constructed at Sirigu during the validation process, it found it way into the list of approved projects and subsequently, uploaded onto the tracker.
This, he believes, was an inadvertence on the part of staff responsible for keying in the data.
He said he, however, drew the attention of the Performance Tracker team for it to be taken down as soon as he noticed it was included.
“The initial instructions even from Accra was that don’t add MPs’ projects. The staff compiled all projects and when it got to me, I asked them not to add it,” he stated.
“But somehow, I don’t know by mistake or what, it was added and sent. And when it came and we checked, I had already told the secretariat that this project was mistakenly added before this storm of noise about MP’s project”.
His explanation comes on the back of concerns by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the inclusion of projects executed by its Members of Parliament.
The NDC accused government of laying claims to a police station and a CHPS Compound, both of which, they said, were constructed by its MPs in the Bolgatanga Municipality and demanded a retraction and an apology.
But Rex Asanga finds the hue and cry by the NDC as unnecessary and noisy.
For him, although government instructed the exclusion of projects funded by the MPs’ share of the Common Fund, there’s absolutely nothing wrong including them since they are constructed with state funds.
“He didn’t construct it with his pocket’s money. I didn’t even agree with our people when they said we shouldn’t add MP’s projects. They didn’t do that with their pockets’ money. Those projects are constructed with money from the consolidated fund”.
He also explained that government expanded and renovated the CHPS Compound at Tindonsobligo reason it has been included on the tracker.
