Expect ‘recycled’ roads in 2020 – Sammy Gyamfi ‘laughs’
National Communications Officer for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi says government claim that 2020 is the year of roads is laughable adding that Ghanaians should expect recycled roads.
According to him, a total of GH₵3.2 billion would have been taken out of the road fund and used for consumption through the capping policy of the Akufo-Addo government by close of 2020.
The national communication officer in a facebook post has raised some concern over the fact that none of the over hundred roads projects promised in the year 2019 budget has been constructed.
“What’s the guarantee that the promised roads in the 2020 budget will see the light of day, ” he quizzed.
His comments comes hours after the finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta during his 2020 budget presentation had mentioned that Ghanaians should expect more roads next year.
” Today, the cry everywhere in Ghana is about the poor state of our roads. It is an unprecedented cry and it makes you wonder where all the roads in the NDC Green Book are. This is why we are going to focus more on fixing our roads across the country in 2020 and beyond.We have also been able to mobilize the financing for over 150 roads nation-wide. With this large number of roads to be constructed, the year 2020 can aptly be described as “The Year of Roads” along with a focus on all our flagship programmes ” he said.
Reacting to this, Sammy Gyamfi argues that the GH₵3.2 billion tax revenue could have been used to salvage the roads that we have in the country.
He fails to understand why government has not made good use of the GH₵3.2billion tax revenue collected.
“Which sensible person or government consumes free GHS3.2 billion tax revenue meant for roads and turns round to brag about borrowing 500 million dollars (2.5 billion cedis) for roads? Yet, this is the tragedy we face in Ghana today under the deceptive, insensitive, corrupt and nepotistic Akufo-Addo government, ” he said in his post.
Find below the facebook post from Sammy Gyamfi
Folks, Government’s claim that 2020 is the year of roads is very laughable.
Fact is, by close of 2020, a total of 3.2 billion cedis would have been taken out of the road fund alone and used for consumption through the useless capping policy of the Akufo-Addo government.
Capping Details:
* 2017- 800 million was capped from the road fund
* 2018-600 million capped
* 2019- 1.2 billion capped
* 2020- 600 million expected to be capped
Total- 3.2 billion cedis.
This 3.2 billion, which is far more than the $500m dollars (2.5 billion cedis) Sinohydro loan government is trumpeting, would have done so much by way of roads, paid contractors who today have been ruined, accelerated movement of people and goods and generated revenue for the development of the country.
Which sensible person or government consumes free GHS3.2 billion tax revenue meant for roads and turns round to brag about borrowing 500 million dollars (2.5 billion cedis) for roads? Yet, this is the tragedy we face in Ghana today under the deceptive, insensitive, corrupt and nepotistic Akufo-Addo government.
In any case, none of the over hundred (100) road projects promised in the 2019 budget has been constructed. So what’s the guarantee that the promised roads in the 2020 budget will see the light of day?
Recycled road projects galore. Year of roads indeed! Talk is really cheap!
*#byebyebudget*
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