NPP to usher in Golden Age of Rural Development — Bawumia
Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, running mate to Nana Akufo-Addo, the flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said that the next NPP government will usher in a Golden Age of Rural Development and that rural and deprived communities will see development like they have never seen before under a Nana Akufo-Addo government.
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Dr Bawumia explained that this would be made possible due to the well-thought-out policies and vision of the NPP aimed at spreading development and growth all across the country, especially, the policy to re-allocate $275 million of the capital expenditure budget to the 275 constituencies directly for development.
At Chereponi in the Northern Region on Monday, Dr Bawumia said: “We have major plans for this country. We are going to introduce new policies that are going to grow this economy, create jobs and bring development to the north and to Ghana as a whole. We are going to introduce a Golden Age of Rural Development in Ghana. This is going to be an age where constituencies, such as Chereponi are going to see development like it has never seen before since independence”, he stated.
Explaining the rationale behind the Infrastructure for Poverty Eradication Programme (IPEP), Dr Bawumia indicated that the initiative was designed to put the resources and power in the hands of the masses to address basic developmental issues such as access to potable water and water for farming, sanitation facilities and motorable roads.
“We are going to make sure that money for development does not stay in the centre but comes to Chereponi. From next year, for the first time in the history of Ghana, we are going to take a part of our capital expenditure budget, we are going to re-allocate a part of it to every constituency in Ghana, every constituency will get its share. From next year, every year without fail, Insha Allah, Chereponi Constituency will get GH¢4million or 40 billion old cedis; every constituency in Ghana will get GH¢4million, which is the equivalent of $1 million for your own development.”
“You are no longer going to wait for Accra before you get money to solve your basic problems or for a government to come and say they are using the money to rear guinea fowls that have run away to Burkina Faso. And it is not like we are going to come in and look for the money. The money is already sitting there. We are going to take it and bring it to Chereponi and other constituencies”, he added.
Speaking on Sunday at Saboba, Dr Bawumia stated that the new age of rural development followed in the stead of the vision and policies of the Progress Party government led by Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia in the early 1970s which focused on the development of the rural and deprived communities of Ghana.
“You are going to see a major transformation. We are going to bring about a golden age of rural development in Ghana. Our development budgets for the last 59 years have been skewed and that is why there is so much underdevelopment. This is why we have to bring about a new age, a golden age of rural development picking up from where Prime Minister Busia’s government left off, where we had a focus on rural development; Nana Akufo-Addo will also focus on rural development”, he said.
Dr Bawumia explained that with the GH¢4million to be allocated to each constituency annually, local solutions would be found to local problems.
