The government has failed to deliver on many of the major promises it made and is now relying on just two or three achievements to show that it is performing well, Ranking Member on Parliament’s Economy and Development Committee, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has alleged.
Oppong Nkrumah said the government should not be judged by broad claims of development. He believes its performance should instead be measured against the specific promises and targets set out in its 2025 and 2026 economic programmes.
During his interview, he said: “There are only about three games in town. Everything else that they listed, literally they have abandoned it.”
The Ofoase/Ayirebi MP said several major promises in areas such as health, education and sports have not been delivered as planned.
He pointed to the government’s plans to improve healthcare infrastructure as one example. These included a promise to build 600 CHPS compounds and work on 35 Agenda 111 projects.
“You were here when they said we were going to build 600 CHPS compounds in the first year, and now they said they were going to do about 35 Agenda 111s,” he said.
He also questioned the government’s promise to build new stadia as part of its sports programme.
“In sports, they said we’re going to build about seven stadia in, I think, the first or second year,” he said.
According to Oppong Nkrumah, the issue goes beyond health and sports. He said similar concerns exist in other sectors, where several major promises made by the government have not been followed through.
“The major outcomes that they listed, they’ve literally abandoned all of them,” he said.
He blamed the situation partly on what he described as weak fiscal management and poor revenue mobilisation.
Oppong Nkrumah said government revenue had not increased enough compared to the size of the economy. He argued that this had left the government with fewer resources to fund many of the programmes and projects it promised.
He said the government had consequently focused on a few areas that it could point to as evidence of its performance.
“We have a theory of why they have abandoned all of those ones and are just clinging onto about two or three things as evidence that their government is performing,” he said.
Oppong Nkrumah said the proper way to assess the government’s performance is to go back to the promises it made and examine what has actually been delivered.
He said this should involve looking at the programmes the government promised to implement, the amount of money allocated to them and whether the targets set in those programmes are being achieved.
He maintained that claims of development should be supported by actual projects, results and budget figures, rather than broad political statements about the government’s performance.
