News:
November 14, 2019
Second Deputy Minority whip, Ibrahim Ahmed has taken a swipe at Government for deliberately delaying the release of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) for some sitting MPs on the Majority side to lose their primaries.
According to the Banda lawmaker the attempt is made for some government appointees at the flagstaff House to have upper hand over some sitting MPs who want to maintain their seats.
He further pointed out in an interview that in the recent election in orphan constituency by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), out to the sixty-five (65) District Chief Executives who contested their primaries only five (5) manage to be victorious.
“The public is angry with those who have anything to do with DACF and as an MP a whole year you have not re-roofed a school building that was rip-off by a rain storm, do you think the people would have mercy on you that is the reason why we are doing this advocacy on the part of our brothers and sisters on the Majority side”.
He recounted that during the time for the Minority primaries the first-quarter of the DACF had been released and they were able to do emergency programmes and projects in their constituencies.
The Majority sitting MPs, in a place like Bantama the Deputy Chief of Staff, Francis Asenso-Boakye who is contesting a sitting MP is distributing things in Bantama, the sitting MP has nothing to distribute.
“How can you compete with him? It tells you government is disadvantaging his own MPs so you understand the anger, NPP said they had the men where are they, just five percent of DACF they cannot pay. They said they believe in decentralization there is an upcoming referendum you vote for a DCE and cannot deal with financial decentralization”.
Mr. Ibrahim Ahmed again revealed that government is able to get money for one of its flagship programmes, the one village, one dame (1v1d) after capping the DACF.
“Have you seen government machinery run out of funds, there is money for National Security , has the Finance Ministry run out of money, President Akufo-Addo is blessed with more resources than former President Mahama. But during Mahama’s time we had fourth-quarter paid before the Ivory Coast disputed oil. When resolved all those funds came to the current government what is their problem now? He queried”
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com