One of the presidential aspirants of the New Patriotic Party, Professor Frimpong Boateng has suggested that there is the need for an Office of the President annex in the North as a way of accelerating development in that part of the country.
Speaking after his tour of the Northern Region, Professor Frimpong Boateng, the Director of the National Cardio-thoracic centre who doubles as the Chief Executive Officer of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, however conceded that this may be an expensive venture but its advantages far outweigh the expense.
He said, after successfully completing such a project the President in every quarter would have to spend some time there to personally see to the acceleration of development in that part of the country.
That is the only way by which the yawning development gap between the north and south could be bridged; Prof Boateng observed adding that his recent tour of the northern region has strengthened and reinforced his position.
According to the Korle Bu CEO, his message to his audience n the north was founded on the lamentations over why in the midst of seeming plenty there is still serious level of poverty in certain parts of the country.
Explaining to his audience why Ghana’s current situation is unacceptable, he cited for instance that Ghana occupies a land area of 240,000 square kilometers with a population of 22 million while Singapore occupies a land area of 697 square kilometers with a population of 4 million but the latter nation is far ahead of Ghana in all areas of development.
He said Ghana has a work force of 11 million while Singapore has a work force of 2 million, but Ghana’s total annual export earnings stand at $3.3 billion with that of Singapore standing at $ 283 billion.
Ghana, he told his audience- mainly NPP delegates that Ghana’s annual cost clearly indicates that our imports outstrip our export. That means we are constantly looking at an annual deficit of over $2 billion. That, he told them is unacceptable.
Prof Frimpong Boateng said that during his trip to the Northern Region he spotted the Chinese busily constructing a bridge over a river that separates Salaga and Kpandai, a development that clearly explains for our lack of technological know how.
He said farming has become tedious and unattractive in the north, since farmers have to break their backs to do manual work on their farms. We should be thinking about how to modernize the way we do things and discard the old and ineffective methods of doing things.
“We should develop the capacity to manufacture machines.” Prof Frimpong Boateng said pointing out that there is a large deposit of limestone around Buipe in the East Mamprusi District, but due to lack of technologies, it has not been explored in these times when cement prices keep galloping every day.
Water supply is a difficult task in the north, but he noted that there are rivers in the north that flows across the country all the way into the sea and the water of those rivers could be tapped and processed into good drinking water.
But again lack of technology is a bane and our northern brothers and sisters are suffering from lack of water and having to make do with poor drinking water.
To Professor Boateng, the main factor responsible for the difference between Ghana and other developed countries is technology.
He buttressed his conviction on that with the observation that “if we gave the technology to manufacture wind turbines and solar panels and batteries we would not have been experiencing the current energy crisis.
