President John Dramani Mahama travels to the three regions in the north but is unable to speak about the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) because the initiative, conceived by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the form of the Northern Development Authority (NoDA), is a failure at the moment, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, flag bearer of the NPP, has said.

He has, therefore, promised that if he wins this year’s presidential elections on December 7, the NPP administration under his presidency will re-establish the NoDA and pay attention to the infrastructural deficit in the North.

In a Facebook post on his official page on Tuesday August 30, Mr Akufo-Addo said: “SADA has been a monumental failure. It has been a vehicle for public money going down the drain. Money that should have been used to establish the basis of a performing agricultural sector in the North has gone into people’s pockets. In the December 2008 elections, I pledged to establish a Northern Development Authority (NoDA) and a Northern Development Fund, vehicles which would help bridge the developmental gap between the North and the South. The then NDC vice presidential candidate, John Mahama, laughed at it. He said I was talking from the back of my head and that if I could find any monies for the Northern Development Fund, I should use that to pay the debts of VRA. When they came to power, they decided it was a good idea after all and brought us SADA.”

“Today, the president can tour the three regions of the North and cannot mention SADA – an initiative which he says is his baby. He cannot mention SADA anymore, because it has become a big failure. We are going to re-establish the NoDA and pay attention to the infrastructural deficit in the North.”