We will not be in a hurry to start new projects – Former President Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama says a new NDC government will not rush to initiate new projects if it is voted into power in 2024.

He said his government would rather invest the available resources to complete stalled and ongoing projects.

“I have said that we are not going to be in a hurry to start new projects. Whatever resources that we have, we are going to use it to continue and finish abandoned and ongoing projects so that we can start making use of them,” he said.

Mr Mahama said this in Wa at the weekend when he addressed scores of people, including labour unions, at a town hall meeting as part of his two-day “Building the Ghana We Want” tour of the Upper West Region.

The statement was in relation to some abandoned projects at the SD Dombo University for Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD-UBIDS), which he promised to complete if he became president in 2025.

Mr Mahama said the late President John Evans Atta Mills promised the then Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS), three key projects before he died.

They were an ultra-modern library, a lecture hall complex, and a students’ hostel facility. According to him, he started those projects when he became president in 2013 but they had stalled.

“I know that all these projects are very important to facilitate teaching and learning in that university. And so, when we come we will continue those projects and complete them so that you can make use of them,” he said.

Talking about road infrastructure, former President Mahama indicated that “it is a shame” that the Wa-Tumu Bolgatanga road was not yet constructed after it had passed through the hands of successive governments.

He indicated that it was a prime road because it linked two regional capitals, serving as a short route for people travelling from Wa to Bolgatanga and vice versa and promised to construct it when he became president.

On the Wa-Bole-Bamboi road, Mr Mahama acknowledged that it was in a very deplorable state with potholes that served as death traps because it had not been maintained for many years after it was constructed during the former President Jerry John Rawlings’ regime.

He emphasized that it was in his interest to rehabilitate the Wa-Bole-Bamboi road to make it easier for people to transport patients from Bole to the Upper West Regional Hospital, which served as a major referral centre for health facilities in Bole.

As part of his visit to the region, the NDC flagbearer for the 2024 general election is expected to interact with the clergy, labour unions, traditional leaders, farmers, and leaders of some tertiary institutions.