Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the New Patriotic Party’s running mate to Nana Akufo-Addo, has remarked that the John Mahama government seems to be more committed to themselves and schemes that will make their pockets fatter than in delivering on their core mandate of developing the nation and reducing the hardships of the people.

Dr Bawumia observed that this seems to be the reason why there is always money for scandalous schemes and projects that obviously end up enriching officials and cronies of the government, but there is always none when it comes to money for development and social investment.

Nana Akufo-Addo’s running mate made the comments in Offinso in the Ashanti Region on the first day of his three-day tour of the region.

He said “the NDC came to meet a debt of GHS9.5billion, which had been accrued from1957 to 2008, but in only 8 years the NDC has moved our debt from GHS9.5billion to GHS110 billion. 90% of Ghana’s debt has, therefore, been accrued just in these last eight years. Again, when one sums up all the taxes and loans, the NPP accrued onlyGHS20 billion for all the work we did. The NDC in eight years have had GHS248 billion from loans and taxes.”

Dr. Bawumia wondered why after so much resources, the NDC had still succeeded in making times hard for the ordinary Ghanaian and ended up collapsing almost all social intervention programmes.

“Despite all these resources, however, this government cannot pay what it has to pay to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), it cannot sustain the School Feeding Programme, National Youth Employment Programme or Free Maternal Care programme; they have cancelled Teacher Training and Nursing Training Allowances, they are owing contractors and cannot pay the School Feeding Grants too,” he said.

The NPP vice-presidential candidate, who moved immediately into the Ashanti Region after a 17-day tour of the Northern Region, concluded that the unprecedented failure of the current government despite all the resources it has had, was down to their uncontrolled thirst for looting from the people of Ghana.

“So where is the money? Where is the 248 billion that has come to this government? The answer is simple; when they want to do Bus Branding, they will immediately get money but when it comes to paying Teacher Training Allowances, they will say there is no money; when they want to pay dubious judgment debts or loot through GYEEDA and SADA, they will immediately find the money, but when it comes to Nursing Training Allowances and resourcing the Health Insurance Scheme, there is no money”, he said, adding, “so what is stifling our growth as a nation is the corruption and theft of our resources”.

The first day of Dr. Bawumia’s Ashanti regional tour saw him visiting the Offinso North and South, Ejura-Sekyedumase, Mampong and Asawase Constituencies.