SADA Should Be A Tool For Devt And Not Elections - Dr. Bawumia

2012 NPP Vice-Presidential Candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has bemoaned NDC’S lack of serious commitment to SADA. According to Bawumia, SADA should be a development tool and not an election tool of the NDC.

Speaking at Lawra on the restoration of hope tour with Nana Akufo-Addo, Dr. Bawumia likened the NDC’s approach to the SADA programme to a mason who wanted to build a house without knowing the plan. He told the teeming crowd that, the NDC after copying Nana Akufo-Addo’s original idea of the Northern Development Authority renamed it SADA without recourse to the original conception and vision and as a result botched an opportunity to bridge the gap between the north and the south.

“Can SADA tell us with certainty what projects they will be completing in the next five years? Today if you ask the NDC what concrete projects are going to be accomplished within the next five to ten years, they will not be able to tell you. If you ask them their source of funding, they will not be able to tell you, the financing for SADA is currently under a model called “lalasulala” financing” he said to a cacophony of applause from the teeming crowd.

The NDC in 2008 promised 200 million Ghana Cedis seed capital and 100 each year, by that we should have 500 million Ghana Cedis today. “Six months ago 100 million Ghana Cedis was allocated for SADA, and up till today, that has not been delivered because they say SADA does not have a plan, however when it came to judgement debts, the NDC clearly had a plan. If SADA does not have a plan it means the NDC government did not understand the programme. For three and half years, the evidence of SADA anywhere in the North has been lacking and this is even more serious when five months to the election we are suddenly witnessing the distribution of tractors without a laid-out plan. If SADA does not have a plan, where do the 100 tractors fit in? SADA has become a sad excuse for northern development” he emphasized.

Nana Akufo-Addo is coming with a Northern Development Programme which will be fully planned, fully costed and with a dedicated source of funding. We will know clearly what we want to achieve in five to ten years and move away from the adhoc policies and gimmickry characterizing SADA today. We should get ready from a new economy in Ghana under Nana, he told the crowd.

The Upper West leg of the restoration tour saw the team receive an inspiring welcome on Monday from the people of Wa. So far the team have toured Lambusie,Lawra, Nandom and Jirapa.