Former President, John Dramani Mahama, has said completing abandoned projects scattered across the country will help protect the public purse.

He said a National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in 2025 would not rush to start new projects while existing ones were uncompleted, “We are going to take the ongoing projects that we were doing that they abandoned."

He said all the E-blocks, the hospitals, the roads, electrification, GETfund projects including the ongoing projects that might not be finished would be completed.

“When we say we will protect the public purse, we mean it, and one way of protecting the public purse is to finish these abandoned projects,” the Former President, who is a Flagbearer hopeful for the NDC, told delegates in Sandema.

Prior to the campaign durbar in Sandema, Mr Mahama addressed a similar gathering at Fumbisi in the Builsa South District as part of his two-day campaign tour of the Region, to solicit support to lead the Party in the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

He noted that the Ghanaian taxpayer’s money was sunk into the abandoned projects, and the taxpayer must benefit from the projects as early as possible.

“When you see some of the E-blocks, they are virtually completed, they have roofed and fixed the doors, everything and they just refused to finish it because they will say Mahama built it. We will act differently. We will show them what a responsible government should be,” he said.

The Former President said there was economic hardship, “Life is hard. In 2016, I wouldn’t say Ghana was paradise, but I can beat my chest and say our lives were far better in 2016 than today.”

He said farmers got subsidised fertilizers and were able to plough their fields at a cheaper rate, as compared to present, where they could not even hire a tractor to plough their fields owing to the cost involved.

The cost of petrol, he said was GhȻ14.00 a gallon when the NDC was in government, he said, adding that “Today, with GhȻ14.00, you will get only one litre. Fertilizer is between GhȻ700.00 and GhȻ800.00 a bag, and you need about two or three bags per acre.”

The NDC Flagbearer hopeful said Ghana had retrogressed under the New Patriotic Party’s government and stressed that an NDC government would work to put the country back on track and restore hope to Ghanaians.

Member of Parliament (MP) for the Builsa North Constituency, Mr James Agalga, said the NDC under the leadership of the Former President awarded the Chuchuliga-Sandema-Wiaga-Weisi road on contract.

He said after the contract was awarded, within a space of five months, the Contractor had done 22 per cent of work, but the NDC lost power in 2016, “If we had won back power in 2017, that road would have been completed.

“Unfortunately, NPP came to power and one of the first things they did was to abandon the road. They refused to pay the Contractor to complete works. The last time I asked the Minister for Roads a question in Parliament he confessed,” he said.

According to Mr Agalga, the entire Builsa North was yeaning for the NDC under the leadership of Mr Mahama to return to power in January 2025 for the roads to be constructed, and recalled that the NDC constructed two “giant dams” in Sandema and Wiaga for irrigation purposes.

The dams, he noted enabled the youth to engage in dry season vegetable farming to earn income.