Whoever collapsed SADA isn't the man to help the people of the North

Sometime in 2008, former President Kufuor aptly conceived and introduced Northern Development Fund, with the view to promoting sustainable development in the northern part of Ghana.

Suffice it to say, former President Kufuor’s successor, the late President Mills, estimably embraced and improved the programme and renamed as the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).

Regrettably, however, things started to go from bad to worst following the sudden demise of former President Mills.

Some officials in the Mahama administration allegedly conspired and embezzled the SADA funds to the utter dismay of Ghanaians.

There were reports of unbridled corruption, including the GH200 million spent on the phantom afforestation programme.

After pumping millions of cedis into the SADA programme with the view to improving the lives of the bona fide Ghanaian citizens of the north, we were later told that the trees have been burnt down and the guinea fowls have miraculously flown to the nearby Burkina Faso without a trace.

There is no denying or hiding the fact that the NDC has a penchant for collapsing or cancelling crucial social interventions. It is a sad case of social democrats who do not know how to initiate and manage social interventions.

The NDC apparatchiks, who bizarrely take pride in the social democratic ideology, are not in the business of promoting the welfare of the masses, but they are rather on a mission to advance their parochial interests by persistently proselytising and hoodwinking the unsuspecting voters to gain electoral advantage.

The erstwhile Mahama administration wilfully cancelled/collapsed the Nurse’s Allowance, the Teacher’s Allowance, SADA, GYEEDA, NHIS, the Maternal Care, the School Feeding programme, the Mass Transport System, amongst others.

Since the inception of the Fourth Republican Constitution, the self-proclaimed social democrats have been opposing social interventions that have been proposed by the successive NPP governments such as the Free Maternal Care, the NHIS, the Metro Mass Transport, the School Feeding Programme, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the Free SHS, amongst others.

I must admit, I felt enormous torment sometime last year on hearing that Mahama has unfortunately added the Teacher Licensure Examination to his tall list of progressive policies and programmes he will cancel in the event of returning to the Jubilee House in 2025.

Let us remind ourselves that it was former President Mahama who found it somewhat necessary to cancel the Teachers and Nurses Allowances while in office.

So it was quite surprising when prior to the 2020 general elections, the NDC promised to restore the Nurses and Teachers Allowances the administration deliberately cancelled in somewhere 2015, which the incumbent president, Akufo-Addo restored on assumption of office in 2017.

If you may remember, Ex-President Mahama vowed, somewhat unequivocally, not to restore the allowances, and that he would rather prefer to lose the 2016 general elections than to offer stipends to the Trainees.

Despite the countless supplications by the Trainee Teachers and Nurses, the former president decided to spurn their earnest pleas and went ahead and cancelled the poverty alleviation allowances.

But lo and behold, the dispirited Trainee Nurses and Teachers found a redeemer in Nana Akufo-Addo, who promised wholeheartedly to restore the allowances if voted into office in 2016.

As it was expected, the disheartened Trainee Teachers and Nurses reposed their absolute trusts in the candidate Nana Akufo-Addo to set them free from the untold economic hardships and massively voted him into power on 7th December 2016.

True to his word, a few months into his administration, President Akufo-Addo graciously restored the allowances to the utter delight of the Trainee Teachers and Nurses.

It would thus appear that the NDC is against any poverty alleviation policy and programme that the NPP administration has initiated and implemented.

If we revisit memory lane, one particular campaign message that dominated the 2008, 2012 and 2016 general elections was the poverty alleviation Free SHS.

While candidate Akufo-Addo and his NPP were promising on all those occasions to implement Free SHS if voted into power, the then candidate Mahama and his NDC were all over the place campaigning vigorously against the policy.

Interestingly, however, Ghanaians mistakenly bought into NDC’s ‘message’ in two consecutive elections (2008 and 2012) and turned down the seemingly advantageous Free SHS offer.

Nevertheless, on 7th December 2016, the good people of Ghana saw the light and gave the Free SHS ‘promiser’ (Akufo-Addo) a massive endorsement.

To his credit though, within a year into his four year mandate, President Akufo-Addo commendably implemented the Free SHS to the delight of Ghanaian parents and their children.

Disappointingly, however, no less a person than Ex-President Mahama has conveniently and persistently been criticising Akufo-Addo for implementing the Free SHS policy, allegedly, at the expense of other developmental projects (see: ‘Free SHS crippling other sectors-Mahama, classfmonline.com/ghanaweb.com, 24/02/2018).

During the 2016 electioneering campaign, former President John Dramani Mahama was captured on tape emitting vehemently: “Hey! That Ghana must not introduce Free SHS on a whimsical promise of a desperate politician”. “Many mistakes have been made by countries in Africa already with Free SHS.”

And, in 2020, he lamented: “The government has budgeted 2 billion cedis for Free SHS for this academic year”. “If you have 2 billion more to spend on education, would you spend all of it on Free SHS, so that even when people can afford to pay, they don’t have to pay?”

Observers can draw an inference from the preceding criticisms that Mahama and the NDC as a party do not fancy the Free SHS, and therefore they are not ready to spend huge amount of money to run the policy.

Given the circumstances, it will not come as a huge surprise at all, if the future NDC government decides to cancel the Free SHS and the Teachers and Nurses Allowances altogether.