Members of Parliament from the Afram Plains have accused the government of diverting US$98 million loan meant to construct a bridge from Ekyi to Amanfrom and rehabilitation of the Ekyi- Donkorkrom and the Bunso– Obuoho road in the Eastern Region.
The loan agreement, under the Deutsche Loan Facility, was presented to Parliament in February 2022 by the Minister for Roads and Highways and the Minister of Finance in a joint memorandum and approved by the House.
According to the MPs, they have received information from the Roads and Finance Ministries through a letter signed by Secretary to the President Asante Bediatuo calling on Parliament to suspend plans for the construction of the roads per the initial agreement approved by Parliament.
This was contained in a statement signed by the MPs for Afram Plains North and South, Betty Nana Efua Krosbi Mensah and Joseph Appiah Boateng.
Ms. Betty Krosbi Mensah who read the statement to the media in Parliament on Wednesday March 29 disclosed the government is currently making arrangements to divert the approved funds for the construction of by-passes on the Accra-Kumasi road from Osino to Konongo.
“This decision by the government is purely politically motivated.
“It will deprive the people of Afram plains of their share of the national cake and also worsen their living conditions as a result of the deplorable state of the roads”, she added.
According to her, the government whilst sending the agreement to Parliament admitted the road network in Afram Plains must be prioritized to provide food security in the country since most of the cities and towns all get their food supplies from Afram plains.
This, the government indicated, was very important because the inhabitants of the Afram plains have been cut off from the rest of the country due to physical access and lack of connecting roads to other parts of the country leaving the ferry as the only means of transport.
“As Members of Parliament representing the people of Afram plains, we want to ask the president what happened to all these priorities to bring the road to Afram Plains.
“I wish to publicly condemn this unfortunate and politically motivated decision as it will deprive my people of better living conditions,” she said.
The Afram Plains North legislator lamented that since its inception in 2017, the Akufo-Addo government has shown its bias against the good people of Afram Plains.
“We would all recall how the previous government made an arrangement with legal backing for the construction of a University of Environment and Sustainable Development (USED) campus in Donkorkrom, which was hijacked and taken to Bunso, the hometown of the President.
“That was the unfair treatment given to us by the President of the Republic, though we tried any means possible to get our university back but all proved futile.”
She warned the Afram Plains will no longer sit aloof for this situation to happen a second time and appealed to the constituents to rally behind their representatives to stop diversion of the US$98 million road fund to the stronghold of the NPP again.
Afram Plains, she said, also deserves development and its share of the national cake.
