Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has jabbed former President John Dramani Mahama to read about data proving that the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration had done better than any other administration in providing health and other infrastructure.
“The data is very clear and so my humble advice to the former President is that he should take a look at the data before you speak otherwise you would end up embarrassing yourself. Agriculture growth, we have performed better, Industrial growth, we have performed better, Inflation rate, we have performed better…this is the data…when it comes to jobs we have created more jobs,” Dr Bawumia stated on the sidelines of a COVID-19 meeting at the Jubilee House on Monday, 4 May 2020.
However, Vice President Bawumia’s statement is not entirely accurate because verifiable data shows that the Akufo Addo administration is the poorest-performing government in terms of health infrastructure. Indeed, the administration has come under serious backlash for failing to invest in health infrastructure and abandoning the construction of over 50 health centres and hospitals started by the John Mahama administration.
What the NPP administration could boast of is the mostly the recently procured 300 ambulances, and the medical drones. However, in terms of personnel emoluments and wages, the NPP administration boasts of significant records than the NDC administration which had running battles with nurses and other healthcare personnel for their allowances and salaries.
Dr. Bawumia was responding to an earlier live streaming on Facebook by ex-President Mahama who outlined how his erstwhile administration’s investment in health infrastructure has become a critical need during the
“I can say without any fear of contradiction, the data shows that in the history of the Fourth Republic, there is no government that has provided as much infrastructure across all sectors in its first term than the first term the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. If you want to challenge that, please bring your data,” Bawumia said.
However, in the Livestream, ex-President Mahama said: “It has been widely acknowledged that some of the critical investments that we [NDC administration] made in the health sector has been extremely useful and enabled Ghana to lessen the impact of this pandemic on our people and our nation. This acknowledgement bears out the vision and clear thinking that went into the massive investments we made in the health sector.”
“There were uninformed and snipped remarks at the time with some questioning why many facilities were constructed. We were acutely aware however that these investments were necessary to modernise a very fragile and weak health system.”