Kufuor's statements were false - Ahwoi

PRESS RELEASE By MR. Kwamena Ahwoi
Response To President Kufuor's Comments At The Commissioning Of The Kumasi Asafo Market Interchange Project

My attention has been drawn to statements made President John Agyekum Kufuor during the commissioning of the Kumasi Asafo Market Interchange Project on Thursday 8th November 2007.

As reported in the 'Chronicle on Saturday', of Saturday 10th November 2007, the President stated among other things as follows:

• The NPP Government was not deceptive like its predecessor, the NDC, and would continue to deliver on its promises to the Ghanaian electorate;

• The NPP Government is not a braggart to show off its major works and projects undertaken in the country.

Both statements are unfortunate because they are both false in all material particulars for the following reasons:

• The Asafo Market Interchange Project is neither an NPP "promise" nor one of the NPP's "major works";

• The NDC Government never deceived Ghanaians about the Asafo Market Interchange Project. Until my present Press Release, neither the NDC Government nor any of its appointees had even publicly acknowledged the seminal role they played in the Project;

• As to which Government is a 'braggart' as between the NPP and the NDC Governments when it comes to showing off its major works and projects, the people of Ghana are the best judges.

The following are the facts.

The Asafo Market Interchange Project was conceived as far back as 1988 as part of the Ghana Government-World Bank Urban II (Secondary Cities) Project by the PNDC Government as a follow up to the highly successful Kumasi City Roads Rehabilitation Project. The Urban II Project was appraised on 22nd January 1990 by the World Bank Staff Appraisal Team and approved by the Board of the World Bank on 14th June 1990.

As PNDC Secretary (Minister) of Local Government, I was responsible for signing the Urban II Agreement with the World Bank in Washington DC at the time. The Ministries of Local Government, Works and Housing and Roads and Highways were the Implementing Agencies.

The most important projects in the Urban II package included the following:

? Reconstruction of the Dansoman and Darkuman roads in Accra;

? Construction of the Kanda Highway in Accra;

? Rehabilitation and asphalting of the Osu, Cantonments and Patrice Lumumba roads among other roads in Accra;

? Construction and widening of bridge over railway between Asafo market circle and UTC circle in Kumasi (emphasis mine);

? Rehabilitation of Kumasi Kejetia Market;

? Construction of Kumasi Kejetia Road and Traffic Management System;

? Construction of new Tema Sewerage System;

? Construction of new Local Government Training School in Accra and Tamale, currently known as the Institute for Local Government Studies;

? Establishment of the Home Finance Company, currently known as the HFC Bank Limited;

? Upgrading of Ashiaman in Tema, Suame in Kumasi and Ward ?E? in Tamale.

The Asafo Market Interchange Project, properly described in the Project document as the ?Construction and Widening of Bridge over Railway between Asafo Market Circle and UTC Circle in Kumasi? suffered from implementation delays. The Project cost was under-subscribed at the time and in order not to lose the money that had been mobilised, the World Bank agreed that the amount should be transferred and used to top up the Kumasi Kejetia component of the Urban II Project whilst efforts were made to source new funding for the Asafo Market Interchange Project.

Almost all the other components of the Urban II projects had however been successfully completed before the NDC Government left office in 2001.

I congratulate the NPP Government for successfully mobilising funds to complete the Asafo Market Interchange Project in its time. I had expected President Kufuor to recount the true history of the Project and given the originators their due during the commissioning ceremony instead of denigrating those who conceived, designed, and negotiated the Project.

It was most unfair for the President to describe the PNDC and NDC Governments that were responsible for the conception, negotiation and initiation of the Project as ?deceptive? and as ?braggarts?, because the Project was neither an NPP ?promise? nor one of the NPP?s ?major works?. If anything, the credit should go jointly to the PNDC and NDC Governments for conceiving, negotiating and initiating it and the NPP Government for implementing it.

Ideas and visionary leadership rule the world and any Government that conceives of a Project and takes it as far as the PNDC and NDC Governments took the Asafo Market Interchange Project deserves as much credit as the Government that undertakes the actual implementation of the Project. It was President Jerry John Rawlings? vision for Kumasi that gave birth to projects such as the Kumasi City Roads Rehabilitation Project, the Kejetia Market and Road and Traffic Management System Project and the Asafo Market Interchange Project and that has restored Kumasi to the image and glory that it lost as the ?Garden City of West Africa?.

KWAMENA AHWOI PNDC Secretary (Minister) for Local Government (1988-1993) and NDC Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (1993-2000); currently Senior Lecturer, GIMPA

21 November 2007.