NPP to usher in golden age of rural development – Bawumia

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, running mate to Nana Akufo-Addo, has said that a future New Patriotic Party (NPP) government under Nana Akufo-Addo will bring about a golden age of rural development which will see rural and deprived communities benefiting from unprecedented developmental projects.

Dr Bawumia explained that this would be made possible due to the well-thought-out policies and vision of the NPP aimed at spreading development and growth across the country, mainly through the policy to reallocate $275million of the capital expenditure budget to the 275 constituencies directly for development.

Speaking at Chereponi in the Northern Region on Monday, Dr Bawumia said: “We have major plans for this country. We are going to introduce new policies that are going to grow this economy, create jobs, and bring development to the North and to Ghana as a whole. We are going to introduce a golden age of rural development in Ghana. This is going to be an age where constituencies like Chereponi are going to see development like they have never seen before since independence.”

Explaining the rationale behind the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP), Dr Bawumia indicated that the initiative was designed to put the resources and power in the hands of the masses to address basic developmental issues like access to water for drinking and farming, sanitation facilities, motorable roads that plague rural and deprived communities.

“We are going to make sure that money for development does not stay in the centre but comes to Chereponi. From next year, for the first time in the history of Ghana, we are going to take a part of our capital expenditure budget, we are going to reallocate a part of it to every constituency in Ghana; every constituency will get their share. From next year, every year without fail, Insha Allah, Chereponi constituency will get GHS4million, every constituency in Ghana will get GHS 4million, which is the equivalent of $1million, for your own development,” he stated.

“You are no longer going to wait for Accra before you get money to solve your basic problems or for a government to come and say they are using the money to rear guinea fowls that have run away to Burkina Faso. And it is not like we are going to come in and look for the money. The money is already sitting there. We are going to take it and bring it to Chereponi constituency and other constituencies.”

Speaking on Sunday in Saboba, Dr Bawumia stated that the new age of rural development follows in the stead of the vision and policies of the Progress Party government led by Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia in the early 1970s which focused on development in the rural and deprived communities of Ghana.

“You are going to see a major transformation. We are going to bring about a golden age of rural development in Ghana. Our development budget for the last 59 years has been skewed, and that is why there is so much underdevelopment. This is why we have to bring about a new age, a golden age of rural development picking up from where Prime Minister Busia’s government left off, where we had a focus on rural development; Nana Akufo-Addo will also focus on rural development,” he added.

Dr Bawumia explained that with the GHS4million to be allocated to each constituency annually, local solutions will be found to local problems.