The leadership of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Krobo enclave, of the Eastern Region, has bemoaned what they say is the bad treatment the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been giving to people in the area, after several years of remaining loyal to the opposition party.
According to the NPP, the area has nothing to show, in terms of development triggered by the NDC, after remaining loyal and voting for the party since 1992.
The opposition party had been winning all three parliamentary seats in the Krobo enclave since 1992, until 2016 when the NPP’s Joseph Tetteh won the Upper Manya Krobo seat for the governing party.
Notwithstanding their loyalty, the NPP Krobo bloc leadership say, the three constituencies in the area have nothing monumental to be proud of after 27years of NDC rule.
New university
In a statement signed by NPP constituency secretary for Lower Manya Krobo, Goldman Awuku Dodzi, the party expressed appreciation to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for seeing to the realisation of the establishment of a new university in the area.
Yesterday, President Akufo-Addo commissioned the first phase of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD).
According to the NPP, the establishment of the university speaks of President Akufo-Addo’s passion to develop every part of the country without discrimination.
“It is only NPP that has taken the development of Kloma as its major priority; the evidence is the University of Environment and Sustainability Department that is being commissioned today,” the statement said.
Setting the records straight
The NPP further debunked claims by members of the NDC that the university is a ‘John Mahama project’.
According to the NPP, while the idea of establishing the university was mooted by the NDC, its implementation appeared in the budget of John Mills-Mahama administration’s from 2010 to 2016 without even a brick laid. The statement added that it took the magnanimity of President Akufo-Addo to get the project started.
On the claim that a campus of the university should have been established at Donkorkrom in the Afram Plains, the NPP said no such arrangement was made before the NDC left office.
“The framework agreement signed between the Government of Ghana and the Exim Bank of South Korea for the construction of the university stated specifically that the university’s four faculties would be sited in Somanya. Indeed, prior to this, Donkorkrom had not been considered as a site by the bank as the suggestion of the previous government was rejected.
“In its handover notes during the transition, the previous government did not mention Donkorkrom as a prospective site, clearly because there had been no agreement to site a university campus there. Indeed, on page 21 of the handing over notes, it is stated; ‘Following the enactment of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development Act 2015(Act 898) Parliament has approved a loan facility of Forty-Five Million Five Hundred and Seventy-Five Thousand Euros (€45,575,000.00) for the establishment of the proposed University at Somanya in the Eastern Region,” the statement said.
