'Criminal abandonment' of projects waste of tax payers money – Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama has described as “criminal” the abandonment of some projects started under his tenure.

Mr Mahama bemoaned that the AKufo-Addo-led government have refused to complete some projects he started.

"I have often drawn attention to the criminal abandonment of key projects and this is one very key example. Almost complete, a full community secondary school, can you see fire extinguishers have been installed, ready to go... I remember it is one of the World Bank-funded projects that we got. There were 23 of them and then the remaining number of 100, we were funding through government resources and if you go round the country, you will find them at different stages of completion, some have almost been completed and yet they remain unoccupied," Mr Mahama said when he visited the Community Day School block at Mpaha in the Yapei Kusawgu Constituency which has allegedly being abandoned on Tuesday, 27 August 2019 as part of his two-day tour of the Savannah Region.

He lamented further that: "If you look at the children in that [Mpaha] community and other surrounding communities, they have to travel several kilometres to go and get a secondary education when a whole secondary school is just at their doorsteps, it just needs a little more to complete it and then the children would have gone into them. There are some that I know are completed..., but government has not done what it takes."

The NDC flagbearer noted that school projects were not the only projects abandoned but others such as health facilities and road projects.

Mr Mahama said the 1992 constitution enjoins all succeeding governments in the 4th Republic to continue the projects that it inherits from the preceding administration “but it doesn't look like this government [NPP] is respecting that aspect of our constitution. It is not only schools, I mean hospitals, there were several hospitals started all over the country that have been abandoned. There are several road projects, there are water projects, electrification projects that have been abandoned and when that happens, it’s just a waste of the taxpayers money, because this is a loan that we were given, government is going to pay and yet we are not getting the benefits of what this school should have offered the community."

From the Savanna Region, Mr Mahama will continue to the North East and Oti Regions.