I will not award contracts for cars - Akufo-Addo

The 2016 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo says should Ghanaians give the mandate in the 2016 Presidential election, his administration would strictly go by Public Procurement Act (PPA) and award contracts through competitive tendering and not sole sourcing.

Addressing residents of Hamile in the Lambussie constituency on Saturday during his tour to the Upper West Region, the opposition leader promised not to award road contracts for cars from any contractor unlike what President John Mahama’s administration has allegedly been doing.

His interest, he noted, is to build Ghana first before any other thing else.

“We are going to find the contractor by a process of competitive bidding. We are not going to go into a room and sit down with one person and say yes – you have the contract. I have no interest in Cadillacs or Fords or whatever. We want to do a job for Ghana, a good job for that matter,” he said.

He promised to rehabilitate the road network from Hamile to Nandom which leads further down – thus when one enters Ghana from Burkina Faso. Those roads, he stated, are in deplorable conditions and would fix them when given the mandate to govern the country.

“This is not the road Ghana should be introduced to people from Burkina Faso. This dirt road? We are going to do something about it, take it from me. People should have a better impression of our country than this road,” he added.

Additionally, he assured residents of Nandom and the Upper West Region, who have fallen prey to microfinance scams, that “if by the time 7th January comes, and, by the Grace of God, I have taken the Oath of Office, and all these matters of the Microfinance institutions have not been sorted out, I am coming to make sure that things are sorted out.”

Nana Akufo-Addo urged residents of Nandom to vote for the NPP’s candidate for the constituency, Hon. Ambrose Dery, stressing that “the change that is blowing across the entire country has to embrace one of the best men you have in the politics of the Upper West.”

Hon. Ambrose Dery, the NPP flagbearer added, “was a brilliant Minister from the Upper West Region. He was a brilliant Regional Minister, and I have no doubt that he is going to be a brilliant Minister in Akufo-Addo’s cabinet.”

Concluding his remarks, the NPP flagbearer appealed to residents of the Upper West Region to restore their links with the NPP, explaining that the Region is where some of the important leaders of the NPP’s political tradition hailed from.

“Their names are written in gold in the history of Ghana – S.D. Dombo, B.K. Adama, Jato Kaleo, Mumuni DImbie, Abaayifa Karbo. These are the names of the men who got up to fight for freedom for our country, at great personal cost, to build Ghana’s democracy. They are turning in their graves knowing that, today, we don’t have a political presence in the Upper West. I am pleading with you. This election, let us restore the NPP to its heritage and connect it to the people who built that heritage.”