Lawyer and member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) communications team, Hamza Sayibu Suhuyini, has described President John Mahama’s “Big Push” agenda as a transformative policy that could significantly boost Ghana’s economy.
Speaking on the JoyNews AM Show on Friday, November 7, Mr Suhuyini said the initiative deserves the attention and support of all Ghanaians, especially because of its focus on road infrastructure.
“The big push agenda I think it is something that we should all be interested in, especially when it comes to road infrastructure in this country. We cannot discount the economic importance of many of these roads that President Mahama seems to be interested in, getting connected not only to town centers but to a very large extent, the capital city. You agree with me that it is inextricably linked to agriculture production,” he said.
He noted that the poor state of roads across the country continues to affect the productivity of farmers and the transportation of goods to market centres.
“For some time now, we have had to deal with the challenge of farmers being unable to cart their goods to these productive centres because of the poor nature of our road network.” And so for me, it is something that we must commend the government on and hope that at least it doesn’t become one of the usual political rhetorics in the country,” he stated.
Mr. Suhuyini urged Ghanaians to show interest in monitoring the progress of the initiative to ensure accountability and results.
“We all must take absolute interest in policing the process and actually getting President Mahama and the entire government to be committed to that initiative. Indeed, we are not dealing with a stranger; we are dealing with a man who, when he was serving his first term as president, was being told he had turned Ghana into a construction site because of the number of developmental projects that were ongoing from the road sector to education and health,” he noted.
He added that President Mahama’s record in infrastructure development provides confidence that the “Big Push” agenda will deliver even greater results.
“That track record is there, it is something we can hold him to and be confident that this time round President Mahama will even approach the road sector infrastructure improvement more than he did in his first term,” he said.
Mr. Suhuyini also called on civil servants to demonstrate greater commitment to fighting corruption and ensuring value for money in the implementation of government projects.
“It is important for us, especially the civil servants—for me that is where the problem comes from. We must all be committed to process and ensure that we try as much as possible to beat down on the tendencies of corruption and inflation when it comes to many of these projects so that we can whip the needed benefit associated with that investment,” he emphasised.
He further urged the media to play an active role in monitoring and reporting on the progress of works under the “Big Push” initiative.
“And that is why I think that those of you in the media too must make it a priority, begin to visit the sites, monitor the works of the contractors and keep all of us posted so that even His Excellency President Mahama at the Jubilee House will be in the position to monitor on a daily basis progress of work on these sites. And if they begin to have financial challenges, these reports can be up so that the president, in consultation with the minister responsible for finance, can find acceptable ways of dealing with the issue,” he said.
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