The main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Upper East Region is accusing government of claiming ownership of projects constructed by NDC’s Members of Parliament and Non-governmental Organizations.
The party’s accusation follows the launch of the Performance Tracker by government showcasing projects it said it has undertaken since 2017.
Speaking at the launch on April 10, 2024, Minister for Works and Housing Kojo Oppong Nkrumah explained that the tracker is a database system that encompasses every activity of the government since it assumed office and is aimed at accounting to the people whose taxes have been expended on the projects.
He indicated that over 13,000 projects undertaken between January 2017 and June 2023 had been validated and uploaded on the system, adding that others will be uploaded subsequently.
But the NDC says its assessment of the tracker reveals that government has enlisted on the tracker projects executed by its government and MPs as well as NGOs, claiming ownership.
“There have also been projects that have also been stolen by the government and claimed to be their own. They can’t runaway from it. And these projects, they must immediately retract and pull the projects down because they don’t belong to them,” he stated.
The projects in question, Regional Communications Office of the NDC Abdallah Jonathan Salifu said, include a CHPS Compound at Tindonsobligo in the Bolgatanga Municipality, which he claimed was constructed by former NDC MP Akolbire Opam-Brown and E-blocks in Bolgatanga East and Binduri Districts, both, he claimed, were constructed by the Mahama government.
Others include a police station said to have been constructed by MP for Bolgatanga at Sirigu in the Bolgatanga Municipality, an immigration flat claimed to have been constructed under the Mahama government and a girls’ model school constructed by ActionAid Ghana, an NGO in Pusiga.
While taking on the government for what he described as projects theft, he called on it to take down the said projects and apologize to the public.
He said his party will continue its examination of projects enlisted on the tracker and will in due course publish all the projects it accused government of stealing.
“We are examining it. When we are done, when we with the examination, we will let the people of Ghana, the people of Upper East know the number of projects they have stolen and added to their tracker. Unless they remove them immediately and apologize. We will continue to expose them for stealing projects that do not belong them”.
