GH¢27bn spent on social interventions - Vice President Bawumia

The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has said the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government has so far spent GH¢27 billion on its major policy interventions.

He named some of the interventions as the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO), free SHS, the restoration of nursing and teacher trainee allowances and free water and electricity supply.

Dr Bawumia said this when he addressed a meeting with teachers and artisans at Mataheko in the Ablekuma Central municipality yesterday.

The Vice-President, who began a four-day working tour of the Greater Accra Region yesterday, was accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Ms Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey; a Deputy Minister of Roads and Highways, Mr Anthony Abeifa Karbo; the Nasara Coordinator of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Aziz Haruna Futa, and some national and regional party executives.

Dr Bawumia said whereas former President John Mahama could not pay the GH¢70 million training allowances for teachers and nurses, the NPP government was able to spend GH¢27 billion because it had built a solid economy from the weak one it inherited from the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

While calling on teachers to continue to support and give the government four more years to roll out more well-thought-through policies, he said the government had made education a major focus of its administration because the alternative of mass illiteracy would be more costly to the economy.

To that end, he said, the government cancelled utility bills for tertiary students and also increased scholarships by 70 per cent.

He hinted that the government also had plans to cushion private schools which were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

ICT lab

Prior to meeting the teachers, Vice-President Bawumia had inaugurated a newly constructed information and communications technology (ICT) laboratory and a library constructed by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ablekuma Central, Mr Ebenezer Nartey, at the Abossey Okai Basic School.

Dr Bawumia also addressed the chiefs and the people of Sukura in Ablekuma Central.

Durbar

Before visiting the Ablekuma Central Constituency, Dr Bawumia had addressed a durbar of the chiefs and the people at Ngleshie Amanfro and Tuba in the Ga South municipality, during which he assured Ghanaians that the five years of frequent power outages (dumsor) under the previous administration would not recur under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo.

As a firm leader, he said, the President was focused and, therefore, needed four more years to sustain the progress made so far to accelerate the development of the country.

Explaining the government’s policies to the people, he said in a bid to sustain the free SHS policy for students to progress to the tertiary level, the government would provide guarantor-free loans for qualified university students to finance their education, which they would pay back later, saying that all they needed to access the loans were their national identification (ID) cards.

He also said there would be a national rent allowance scheme to support families to rent houses in the form of loans which they would pay back later with ease.

Coupled with these policies, the Vice-President said, would be the national transport recapitalisation scheme to make it easier for vehicle acquisition, particularly for commercial transport owners.

Jobs

The aspiring MP for Bortianor Ngleshie Amanfro, Mr Sylvester Tetteh, called on the people to vote for him and President Akufo-Addo to continue with development in the area, saying so far 1,500 youth in the constituency had been enrolled onto NABCO.

He said 800 of them were into youth in afforestation, while 150 had also benefited from government scholarships.

The Chief of Ngleshie Amanfro, Nii Kwashie Gborlor IV, appealed to the government to facilitate the construction of a proposed circuit court and a community centre for the area.

He said the NPP government had done a lot, with the icing being the free SHS policy.

Nii Gborlor asked the government to intervene to resolve the administrative boundary disputes between Ngleshie Amanfro and its neighbouring communities.

Dr Bawumia also inspected the construction of an Astroturf at Tuba and introduced the aspiring NPP MP, Mr Tetteh, to the people.