You can't question us on Bolga-Bawku Road – NPP to NDC

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Upper East Region has cautioned the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the region against peddling falsehood concerning works on the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Polimakom Road.

According to the Upper East Regional NPP, its opponents have no moral right to talk about the road project after the NDC failed several times to secure funding for the project.

“It is quite depressing if not heartbreaking that at the back of all the failed promise and politicking, they had as much as 12 Members of Parliament who could not convince their own President to attend to the teething plight of their constituents.

“It is therefore worth asking if the NDC and their John Mahama have any credible basis to be questioning the NPP about this road. You the good people of the Upper East, trusted them, you thought they were development partners, but they shrugged you off with disdain and ridiculed your frustrations,” the party's Regional Communication Director, Peter Ayinbisa Ayamga said.

Leadership of the NDC held a press conference on Tuesday, 21 February 2023, to demand for the return of the contractor, Queiroz Galvao MI, the Brazilian contractor working on the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom Road in the Upper East Region after he packed out of the site due to non-payment of arrears.

But at a counter presser held by the NPP at the party's Regional office in Bolgatanga, on Tuesday, 28 February 2023, dubbed, ‘The Hard Truth’, it revealed that according to checks, the contractor, has not left the site and work on the road is 64 percent complete.

"The erroneous claims by the NDC that the entire stretch of the Bolga, Bawku Polimakom Road was 54 percent work done is telling on the hollow and armchair nature of their research on this project. Our checks from the Ghana Highways Authority point to a contrary report of 64 percent of work done (Reg. Director, Ghana Highways Authority 24/02/2023).

“The deliberate reduction of the percentage of work done by the NDC is shocking and unbelievable," the party's Regional Communication Director noted.

The Bolgatanga, Bawku-Pulimakom Road has been at the center of political discussion in the region for years.

The project began in 2016 and was expected to be completed in two-and-a-half years, but due to non-payment of arrears, the contractor withdrew his equipment from the site for about a year.

The Contractor was later brought back by the current administration in 2018 with a revised contract sum.

The project includes the construction of three new bridges at the Kulaa River at Bolga which was 30percent complete, the Red Volta River at Tilli – 80 percent complete and the White Volta River at Kobore which is yet to begin.

The NPP executives at their presser therefore assured the people of the region to have faith in the current administration, as it is working hard to complete the project.

"Our checks at the site indicate that the contractor had relocated a number of his equipment out of the region. But the Ghana Highways Authority and the Ministry of Roads tell us that there has not been any official communication from the contractor suggesting desertion of the site.

“Based on this official communication, we have the strongest conviction that the contractor will be back soon,” they said.