Group petition Kufuor, Rawlings to decline images on Mahama buses

A group calling itself the 'Concerned Ghanaians' has appealed to former Presidents John Rawlings and Kufuor to ask the Mahama-led administration to remove their images from the 116 government buses whose re-branding have been afflicted with controversies.

There is massive public outcry over the $3.6 million that has been dissipated on the branding of the buses. The Chief of Staff Julius Debrah has ordered for an investigation into the award of the contract which was won by Smarttys Productions; a company owned by a known activist of the ruling National Democratic Congress.

The group is therefore urging the two former Presidents to dissociate themselves from the “wasteful expenditure”.

"We believe that you will consider it profligate, as we do, that government spent a whopping GHC3.6m on this hubristic exercise. In the midst of our current economic problems as a nation, which caused the President to admonish Ghanaians to tighten their belts, we find that it is a wasteful expenditure to paste pictures of former presidents including the current president on these 116 buses at an individual cost of GHC31,000".

Below are details of the statement by Concerned Ghanaians

21st December, 2015

PETITION TO THEIR EXCELLENCIES, PRESIDENTS KUFFOUR AND RAWLINGS SEEKING TO HAVE THEIR IMAGES REMOVED FROM THE 116 BUS RAPID TRANSIT (BRT) BUSES.

Your Excellencies,

It is with great dismay that we, as Concerned Ghanaians, have noticed the adorning of 116 government procured BRT buses with the portraits of the current and former presidents, namely John Evans Atta Mills, John Agyekum Kuffour, Jerry John Rawlings and John Dramani Mahama.

We believe that you will consider it profligate, as we do, that government spent a whopping GHC3.6m on this hubristic exercise. In the midst of our current economic problems as a nation, which caused the President to admonish Ghanaians to tighten their belts, we find that it is a wasteful expenditure to paste pictures of former presidents including the current president on these 116 buses at an individual cost of GHC31,000.

Knowing the good values of prudent financial management and good governance which you ascribe to, we are left with no doubt in our minds that you do not approve of such an expenditure as well as the idea of placing your images on these buses.

We are thus humbly appealing to your good conscience to request that you direct that your images be taken off those buses.

We, together with the growing number of online signatories to this petition, shall remain eternally grateful to you if you could grant us our petition.