Do they really care?

The Government of Ghana (GOG) initiated the Ghana Urban Transport Project (GUTP) in 2008, together with the World Bank, the French Development Agency and the Global Environment Facility, in order to improve mass transport services within the Greater Accra Metro Area (GAMA). The Ghanaian Government spent millions of the taxpayers’ money to sponsor technocrats, journalists and politicians to visit and study bus systems in several countries including South Africa, Nigeria, before making a decision. The Accra Bus-Rapid-Transit (BRT), which later became Quality Bus System (QBS), is a part of this effort, aiming to provide an efficient and affordable bus transit system in Accra and later the whole of Ghana. Under the NDC, the government procured to 245 buses even though the dedicated lanes were neither enough nor ready for use. As at 10-09-17, only 58 buses out of the 245 imported into the country were operational. 170 of them can currently be counted still parked nicely in the compound of the Greater Accra Passenger Transport Executive (GAPTE), the managers of the QBS. The Dedicated lanes for the operating buses are not well defined and trotros still use them. The Drivers of the QBS went on strike yesterday over unpaid salaries. Managers of the QBS say they need an injection of funds to revamp and sustain the QBS. The first batch of 100 minibusses out of a total of 275, said to have been purchased by the acting National Chairman of the NPP, Mr. Freddie Blay, have arrived in the country. The News has it that, Mr. Blay is expending a total of US$11 million on the venture. QUESTIONS!!! How can the Mahama Government buy 245 busses knowing very well that the country does not have the road network capacity to make maximum use of even half of it? If the NPP Government really mean well for the people of Ghana as they promised un in the run-up to the 2016 elections, why is the National Chairman hopeful not pumping his money into the weakening QBS but rather buying buses for the party? Am I right to say that it easier for the NPP billionaires to spend huge sums of money on the NPP but not on the Ghanaian masses who gave power to the NPP? In any case, why did Mr. Blay’s buses not come in until now that the NPP is in power? Can the NPP and Mr. Blay prove sufficiently that the US$11 million is not the taxpayers’ money? Does the NPP Government really have the development priorities for this nation right at all? How can they allow Mr. Blay to expend such an amount of dollars at this time when the Ghana Cedi is begging the USD for mercy; when US$1=GHC4.80p? If Mr. Blay, who I suppose may have presidential ambitions, really cared about Ghanaians, could he not have even borrowed this money to the government to salvage t=our crumbling economy? Well, #EfoIsAlwaysWatching. November 2020 is just 28 months away.