MP takes on Mahama over SADA

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Effutu, Alex Afenyo-Markin, has lambasted President John Mahama for his loud silence on the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) when he delivered his State of the Nation address.

The Effutu MP wondered why SADA, which was initiated to help bridge the gap of poverty between the north and the south and to hasten the development of the north, could be sidelined in an important address like the State of the Nation.

Mr Afenyo-Markin, who was making a contribution to the debate on the address in parliament on Wednesday, said he felt sad that President Mahama could treat the people of the north like that.

“Mr Speaker, in this year’s budget, this government allocated a paltry Ghc400,000 to SADA, which in my opinion, is very little as compared to the over $20 million allocated to the same institution in 2014,” he noted.

According to the Effutu MP, an important programme like SADA had been completely mismanaged, and that the authority was wobbling on its feet.

“I speak on SADA with passion because it was a means to help develop the three northern regions and stop many of these unfortunate young girls from the north who abandon their education to come to the south to engage in menial jobs and ‘kayayei,’” he said, stressing that the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection was in parliament last year to tell parliamentarians that the ‘kayayie’ phenomenon was assuming an alarming proportion and so something ought to be done about it.

“Mr Speaker, we have a president who is from the north and about 80 MPs, most of them on the ticket of the NDC, also from the north; but they seem not to care about this worrying SADA issue which could help solve the kayayei problem,” Mr Affenyo Markin emphasized.

He said there is a serious lack of transparency and accountability in the present government.

He also wondered why the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, who had caused huge financial loss to the state in the botched district level elections, could be praised by the president as someone who had distinguished himself as the EC chairman.