BY now President John Evans Atta Mills is busily poring over a voluminous set of handover notes in the Executive Office of the Golden Jubilee House. He is likely to find in those notes briefs on government business, both finished and unfinished, the state of national security, loans contracted or due to be contracted and many others that will guide him in his new role as the President of the Republic.
I will not be surprised if former President J. A. Kufuor were to bare his heart to his successor and admit in his handover notes some of the promises he made but which he could not fulfil during his tenure. Promises are common on political platforms and are even tolerated sometimes even though the electorates who are expected to be beneficiaries of such promises may be sceptical and doubtful about their being fulfilled.
How do you conduct a political campaign geared towards wining the votes of the people in order to gain political power without making promises? There are always promises for job creation, new roads, expanded and modern educational facilities, more and better health facilities and many more. Some of these are made in the euphoria of the moment, while others are well-thought-out and may be part of a party’s manifesto. And so, as the promises flow, the crowd will cheer, regardless of whether they are realistic and practicable or not.
Former President Kufuor and his government made their fair share of promises and in fairness to his administration, some of them have been fulfilled, either fully or partially. They include the Bui Hydroelectric Dam Project, repeal of the criminal libel law and the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme to cover the whole nation.
There are many others, which for several reasons never took off. It could be that, at the time those promises were being made, the true picture of the projects were not well captured and, therefore, their magnitude and financial implications were taken for granted.
One project dear to my heart and I believe that of many Ghanaians and our northern neighbours in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali that was promised by former President Kufuor but which we dearly missed was the Accra-Paga railway project.
A railway linking Accra with northern Ghana would have brought a major change in the socio-economic development of this country. It would have made easier and cheaper, the transportation of goods and persons between the extreme geographical ends of the country. But of greater economic benefit to the country would have been the improvement in trade between Ghana and the Sahelian countries up north that have to channel their imports and exports through our ports. It could also have contributed immensely to sub-regional integration.
We were not told what prevented former President Kufuor from meeting that target. We can only guess that the reasons may be financial and technical. I did not hear President Mills making any promise to build a railway linking the south and the north, but I will suggest that in view of the strategic importance of such a project, both economically and socially, he should give it a serious attention.
There was another project that never took off. That was the James Town Fishing Harbour promised the fishermen of that community in Accra. As part of his last days in office, and in an apparent attempt to bolster Nana Akufo-Addo’s presidential ambitions, former President Kufuor went round the country cutting sods for the commencement of various projects.
The James Town Fishing Harbour project was one of them. We do not know whether funds have been solicited for these projects, but it is a burden President Mills has to carry. It is only accidental that former President Kufuor may take the credit or at least share in it, if the Mills administration succeeds in bringing them to fruition.
The James Town Fishing Harbour, as well as the landing sites and storage facilities promised the various fishing communities by the previous administration is very important and President Mills, knowing where he is coming from and his support base among the fishing communities, will do well to meet their demands.
One major project that was never inaugurated by former President Kufuor and which remains a mystery is the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange. This was a project that was intended to ease traffic around that part of the city and add to the beauty of the capital city. But many Ghanaians realised disappointingly that none of the two major objectives was met.
Instead of easing traffic, the Tetteh-Quarshie Interchange has become a huge jungle where motorists are constantly fighting for survival into and out of Accra. In the midst of the confusion, nothing beautiful could come out of the interchange. Maybe that explains why the former President, while he found time to open a shopping mall situated on the neck of the interchange, could not perform the official inauguration of the facility.
As things stand now, President Mills will have to assemble a team of road engineers to redesign the interchange to conform to 21st century designs and demands and to look for funding for the reconstruction of the interchange so that it can assume the physical character it was originally intended to.
If President Mills looks through the handover notes critically, he will notice that a road yet to be constructed has been named after President George W. Bush of the US. That is the Tetteh-Quarshie-Mallam Junction road, which is to be reconstructed into a dual-carriageway to be funded from the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA).
The sod-cutting ceremony for this project received a lot of media attention and it is only obvious to expect that Ghanaians will like to see it completed as early as possible. There are many other road projects that have been scratched without completion and the new administration will have to see to their early completion.
There are outstanding bills to pay, which include moneys owed contractors who worked on government projects and the Ghana@50 jubilee projects, some of which were never executed but were captured in the jubilee budget.
As President Mills goes through the handover notes, he will notice that many of the promises made on campaign platforms could not be fulfilled and that should remind him of his own promises, which will very soon be staring him in the face as he settles down for serious business.
There are many other outstanding matters that as the days roll by will be brought to the attention of President Mills and his team. In the meantime, this column welcomes the President to the hot seat and wishes him well.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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