Tamale, Jan 08, – Mr Haruna
Iddrisu, Minority Leader in Parliament, has accused the government of deception
saying it has failed to honour its pledge of providing a seed money for the
Zongo Development Fund (ZDF).
He said allocations to the ZDF
contained in the 2017 and 2018 budget statements was GH₵100 million, which fell short of the 50 million dollars seed
money promised by the government to support the operations of the ZDF.
Mr Iddrisu made the accusation on
Sunday when he inaugurated electrification project for the Dalinbila community
in the Tamale South Constituency, where he represents in Parliament, bringing
electricity coverage in the Constituency to 99.5 per cent, leaving one more
community in the area to be connected to the national grid.
Mr Iddrisu said “The whole
budgets for 2017 and 2018 for ZDF is GH₵100million,
so President Akufo-Addo, honour your word; this is deceptive if you say that
you are setting up a seed money, no seed money has been provided for ZDF
neither was it provided for in the legislation.”
He said the ZDF Law, recently
assented to by the President, and “Is welcome news but nothing to celebrate
because the solution to the problems, which affect the Zongos, does not lie in
the creation of new bureaucracies.”
The ZDF was a manifesto promise
by the New Patriotic Party during the 2016 electioneering campaign, and a law
to ensure its implementation was passed by Parliament, which was recently
assented to by the President.
Mr Iddrisu also spoke about the
Special Prosecutor Act and the Office of the Special Prosecutor saying, “Legal
fixes to dealing with economic criminalities such as corruption is always not
an adequate mechanism but arguably is welcome that we want to have a Special
Prosecutor to combat corruption because of its debilitating effects.”
He said “The greatest threat to
the success of the Special Prosecutor Act and the Office of the Special
Prosecutor remains political bias, whether or not the person appointed to the
office will exercise justice in a manner, which is impartial, which is a
requirement of law”.
He said “If it is used only as an
instrument to check the past, it will become an instrument for witch-hunting,
if it does not focus on the present issues, then it will fail as an impartial
watchdog to combat corruption.”
He said there would be issues in
the past but essentially there were present issues as well, which were credible
candidates for special prosecution that the Special Prosecutor must be
interested in adding “The Special Prosecutor must uphold a fundamental
principle of law, which is equality of the law and natural justice.”
Mr Iddrisu said “The Special
Prosecutor should not know only former functionaries of National Democratic
Congress’ government and not know present functionaries of this government, who
may suffer infractions of the law.”
He spoke about the rural
electrification project in the Constituency, saying it was an initiative of the
previous government, which was completed by the current government, saying this
fulfilled his pledge to the constituents that no community under his watch
would be without electricity.
He, however, said the government
did little to extend electricity coverage in the country, saying, “For the
period 2017 up to January 06, 2018, the government added less than two per cent
to the national average of rural electrification, which stood at 82% by the end
of 2016 to 83.3% by the end of 2017.
Chiefs and people of the area
expressed gratitude to Mr Iddrisu for honouring his pledge by extending
electricity to their community.
GNA
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