NPP, NDC ought to stick to national development plan – Dean of UPSA Graduate Studies
The Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), John Mensah Mawutor, has called on the two main political parties in the country– the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC)– to religiously adhere to the national development plan.
He said that will make citizens across the country to feel their share of the national cake regardless of which political party is in power.
Mr Mawutor also indicated he and most Ghanaians are not enthused with how the two main political parties ignore the national development plan, despite its potential to making citizens across the country comfortable, citing how, for instance, the two main parties cannot improve on railway development in Accra and its environs to help ease traffic congestion in the national capital.
“Every government comes in and wants to do something different…Unfortunately you see them [both parties] introducing new projects because of their campaign messages to ensure that what they said they would do, they have done, but at the end of the day it creates so many problems to the economy,” Mawutor lamented as he pointed out how governments are unable to continue projects that were initiated by their predecessors. “So that thing must stop.”
“Till date, we can’t implement a very effective railway system in this country [not] even in Accra here. I live as far as beyond Legon. If there was an effective railway system, I would never drive from Legon to this place,” disappointed Mawutor noted.
“These are revenue-generating areas” he added and suggested the two parties should agree to do that because he didn’t see any third force taking over NPP and NDC in the next year.
Mawutor who was speaking to Eric Ahianyo on Morning Update on TV XYZ Monday morning disclosed that most citizens are looking forward to seeing the national development plan implemented because of its tendency to tackle most of the challenges of the inhabitants of the country steadily.
“We live in a country where the people are always talking about having a consistent development plan,” he averred and warned politicians not to “trick the process.”
“One could easily accuse all these two parties that have led the country with the commencement of the fourth Republic: the NDC and NPP…Let’s admit that they haven’t managed their projects well because, you see, in project management, if you don’t manage your implementation stage very well, it makes the project expensive, you have an escalation in pricing, you even have deterioration in the project itself,” he noted.
“Look at the affordable housing by [former president] Kufuor, what has happened to them?” Mawutor quizzed and made a strong case that “these two parties must come together” on certain key projects which need to be delivered with urgency.
Mawutor continued, “That’s why we need that national development agenda. And these two parties, I have always said it will be in their own interest to start agreeing to develop this country else a day will come when the people will revolt.”
He went on to make a reference to unrest that happened in neighbouring Burkina Faso where a section of the disappointed youth set ablaze a Parliament House because they felt their parties representatives didn’t represent their collective views.
To him, it was time the two parties that have taken turns in governing the country since the inception of the fourth Republic build a consensus to stick to the national development plan that projects clearly how most challenges of the country can be tackled gradually.
