Otoo: Rushing to commission projects won't save NDC

The strategy of commissioning or inaugurating projects few days to elections will not translate into votes for the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) because “infrastructural developments don't save governments during elections”, Nii Ayikoi Otoo, a leading member of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said.

President John Dramani Mahama has commissioned and inaugurated numerous projects few days to the December 7 polls including a Faecal treatment plant, the Bukom sports complex, Kotokoraba Market, Kasoa Interchange Phase I, Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange, among others.

The private legal practitioner in a Facebook post on Saturday, December 3, said: “Rushing to inaugurate or commission uncompleted projects will not save the NDC.”

He was of the strong belief that “Ghanaians want to feel free to enjoy life and not to become tourists at project sites that don't put food on their tables or give them jobs or from which all Ghanaians do not derive benefits”.

Mr Otoo, who served as Attorney General under the erstwhile John Agyekum Kufour administration, added: “Kufuor found oil and built overpasses including cutting through rocks at Aburi Mountains to create dual carriages and many development projects. That did not translate to votes in 2008. Nkrumah regretted infrastructural developments and said if he knew Ghanaians needed milk he would have constructed pipes for milk to flow through them and allowed essential commodities everywhere.”

He stressed: “Ghanaians are suffering and undergoing hardships, high unemployment figures, high cost of living, high rate of taxes, dumsor, businesses collapsing or relocating to La Côte d’Ivoire, high bank lending interest rates, serious borrowing by government and payment of high interest rates, inflation not being stable, corruption, judgment debts still outstanding, high electricity taxes, high cost of food prices, etc.”